Delilah Ngarapai Lane

An impressive emerging artist born into a strong line of family painters. As a young child, Delilah would listen to stories of the seven sisters and hunting while her mother would prepare meals from the days hunt and her grandmother would paint. In her artworks she creates beautiful visual narratives of life on the land, She also paints Lake Louis, her mother’s country, Lake Baker and Waburton. The colours are an important part of Delilah’s work and demonstrate a keen eye for contrast and storytelling.

Delilah was raised by her grandmother, Dora Lane (nee Richards) in Wannan. Her mother was unable to care for her due to alcohol addiction. Her grandmother’s father was Ngaanyatjarra from Wannan and her mother was Pintubi from Papunya way. Her grandmother had moved south after running away from a promised husband in Papunya, walking from Papunya to Kintore, Kiwirrkurra before arriving in Karilwara (Patjarr).

Dora (deceased) was a traditional woman and artist and has paintings in the Warburton Arts Collection. Delilah’s grandmother taught her about country, hunting and painting. They would go hunting regularly for bush tucker such as maku (witchetty grubs), tinka (goanna) and rabbit as well as collecting many edible plants. She attended schools in Wanarn, Warburton, Warakuna and Mantamaru (Jameson). Delilah learned to paint when she was little and once she did a painting with her grandmother.

When Delilah flies in the small plane flying between Laverton and Warburton she looks down on her grandfather’s country, Lake Baker and think about it being good country with the plants, the lovely flowers, the rockholes and sandhills.

She did paint Wanambi or ‘water snake’ (also known as Rainbow Serpent) a very big Tjukurrpa (ancestral creation story) that traverses Australia but has decided to stop “it might come and get me, I’ll leave it”.