Kumantje Jagamara made Lightning 1998 after attending a series of workshops run by representatives from the Campfire Group (an Aboriginal art collective based at Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane). The painting was a radical departure from his more traditional Western Desert style.

Jagamara used vibrant magenta lines to signify bolts of lightning, a natural phenomenon that is associated with one of the many Dreaming stories of which the Warlpiri/Luritja man was custodian (others include the Yam Dreaming, Two Kangaroo Dreaming, Rock Wallaby Dreaming, and Bush Banana Dreaming). Jagamara revisited these motifs throughout his celebrated career, producing vivid depictions of these important cultural narratives.