'Belonging to the Land' by Uncle Colin Jones

"This painting shows how we belong to the land. We have the serpent which is denoted in many of our paintings and our art. The serpent is camouflaged in its environment and in the environment here, you have the drier areas. As I said we looked after every piece of land over Australia and we adapted to every environment. Once again, we have the little campsites going around with the little footprints showing that we moved around the land to protect the land not to destroy it, we moved on to let the land regenerate. Again, we have the women sitting around the fire with their coolamons and digging sticks.

The feeling of the land, the movement of the land, you can see it running from the dry creek beds when it rains and they dry up and the patterns they form. It shows the whole structure of the land that we belong to. And how do we know that we belong to it? Because we have our hand signs again, here is my little granddaughter, Madison and her family grew up in the Cunnamulla area. Also I have my little Grandsons, Ren, Kye and my other little granddaughter, Mia.

Now, my son – Aboriginal of course has a wife who is Japanese and we call their children our little Jaboriginals. But what they are – it shows those hands and helps them learn to know where they belong and who they are and to have respect for their culture. And it’s just showing the whole structure of looking after the earth and we are a part of it."