The image of the 'skull cave' was first used by the artist in 1994 in a painting entitled niagara. With both this painting and the lithograph, Watson physically embodies the idea of erasure — that is the erasure of Indigenous history and culture — translated here through the image slowly being removed during the creative process.

The keyhole shape is not unlike a marker for a sarcophagus and here it refers to the burial caves in Lawn Hill Gorge. It also resembles the symbol for the Phantom, the comic book series that was created in 1936 by Lee Falk, The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks. His home is the fearsome 'Skull Cave', deep in the heart of the jungle.

The simple form, which is understated and floating both with and above the tusche washes of the lithograph, appears as though it was once previously buried and has been revealed by the surface of the stone through Watson's working and re-working of it.

As Watson says: 'My work is often encoded and hidden, slowly coming to the surface. Making the work and viewing it is like archaeology of site and memory. I often deal with concealed histories, revealing them and removing the whitewash'.

Skull cave presents an aerial view of the topography of the land, reflecting and integrating both the history of the ground and its people. This is the main thematic that drives Watson's work; as Hetti Perkins states: 'It is the omnipresence of the land as silent witness which often underlies the imagery in Watson's practice'.