Women’s Collaborative Project – Nancy Donegan, Pamela Hogan, Kendrea Hogan, Kunmanara Walker and Donna Brown.

Marie (Donna) Brown

Marie (Donna) Brown is a Cundeelee Mission baby, meaning she was born in Kalgoorlie but her parents (Cyril Brown and Dulcie Grant) were residing at Cundeelee Mission when she was born and that is where she spent her formative years. Marie moved to Tjuntjuntjara in the late 90s and has recently began painting with Spinifex Arts Project in between her job in the community Aged Care.

Kendrea Hogan

Kendrea comes from a family of artists, her father Timo Hogan is one of the Spinifex Arts Project’s leading painters. Timo and Susan Young (her mother) were living in Kalka in the APY Lands, when she was born and the family lived in Kalka for the first 10 years of Kendrea’s life, later moving to Tjuntjuntjara. Kendrea has a great passion for the arts and has recently began painting with the Spinifex Arts Project.

Marilyn Walker

Marilyn is a Pitjantjatjara woman from the Great Victoria Desert. At the time of Marilyn’s birth in the 1960s her family had moved away from their traditional country and relocated to Cundeelee Mission. A few years later, the British Government began testing atomic weapons at Maralinga, within the range of the Spinifex people. Marilyn has very fond memories of life in the mission and it is the primary theme of her work.

Nancy Donegan

Nancy was born in the hospital at Kalgoorlie in 1973, but her traditional lands are actually some 900 kilometres to the north east in the Great Victoria Desert. Nancy lived with the old people in the mission at Cundeelee after they were moved out of the Great Victoria Desert due to the atomic testing in the late 1960s. After moving to Coonana and Warburton for a time, today, Nancy is back in the Great Victoria Desert, in Tjuntjuntjara, with her children and extended family.

Pamela Hogan

Also born in Kalgoorlie, Pamela Hogan grew up at Cundalee Mission and Coonana, a place she says is “gone now”. After a move to Blackstone, Pamela spent many years working at the Arts Centre until, like the other women in the group, she moved back to Tjuntjuntjara in 2019, where a lot of her family live. “It’s really nice going out on Country with the old ladies now, it helps me feel connected and strong,” she says. “It’s good at Tjuntjuntjara, with the old people. Happy and safe.”