“Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri lived a nomadic existence untouched by European contact until 1984, when he and eight other family members walked in from the Gibson Desert to the remote community of Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia. With the art movement in this region having begun over ten years prior, Warlimpirrnga entered into this stream of artists with a great measure of reverence and respect. Almost immediately, his paintings had the resolve and strength of the veteran and most senior Papunya Tula artists. His depiction of the sites and narratives of his homelands around Lake Mackay, a vast salt lake, draws from the ancestral realm and the power of these places.” (Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, 2023, p. 22)

"The designs in this painting relate to a place called Maruwa, where there is a swamp, a soakage and a rockhole. In the Dreaming, a large group of ancestral men known as the Tingarri ancestors traveled to Maruwa from the west, and after arriving there, they entered beneath the earth’s surface and continued their travels underground. Maruwa is also significant because a large ancestral snake sleeps in the swamp." (Henry Skerritt)