These prints are part of a portfolio that was commissioned in 2006 by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to commemorate 400 years of Dutch contact with Australia since the vessel ‘Duyfken’ (Little Dove) visited these shores in 1606. This is the first recorded contact of Europeans with this country.

Created with the assistance of the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne, ten artists were chosen to create work for the portfolio. They are from the regions visited by the ‘Duyfken’: Tasmania; north-east Arnhem Land; Aurukun, western Cape York Peninsula; southern Western Australia; and Janice Murray and Pedro Wonaeamirri’s home of Melville Island.

Both works reflect the tradition of abstract jilamara painting style, and in these works, this can be recognised by the use of the traditional ironwood painting comb — yirrinkirripwoja — which creates rows of dots and the basis of their compositions.