Aboriginal painter Debbie Brown lives in the community of Yuendumu, 250 km north-west of Alice Springs. She is one of the ‘guardians’ of the place where the bush tomato grows, and as such is responsible for carrying out the rituals required to maintain the fertility of the site in question: To give the earth a spiritual force that will sustain the growth of the plants, the artist and the women of her clan group apply body paint, sing and dance during sacred ceremonies known as ‘awelye’, during which the ground is also painted using the dotted line technique characteristic of the pictorial art of the central desert, which Debbie Brown uses here.

In making this painting, the artist is performing a similar action.