Gordon Barney was born on Alice Downs Cattle Station in the Kimberley’s. Barney’s father was a stockman named Barney Wilknean. Barney tells of how his father taught him all he knows of the bush and Aboriginal law. Barney worked as a stockman on most of the stations in the Kimberley’s. The stories depicted in Barney’s paintings are typically hills, creeks and bungles, formations that are the Kimberley’s.