Madigan Thomas was born about 1930 in the Violet Valley region of Mabel Downs Cattle Station, Western Australia. Madigan lived here until her relocation to the Warmun Community at Turkey Creek some years ago.  It was Madigan’s profound love and connection to her country and her mixing of locally found ochres with Queenie McKenzie that begun the catalyst for her to become an international artist.

In 1987 Madigan began painting with the encouragement of Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie.

To take a spell from painting and relax her weary painting hand, Madigan strolls the Warmun area with her husband, Sandy. She takes in the stories of the land as she walks and her memory takes her to another story that she feels drawn to paint when she gets back. As the traditional land-owner of the Warmun area, he is responsible for the land or caretaker as he names his position. This position involves important decision making for his community.

Madigan reflects on her days painting alongside the late famous Queenie McKenzie. Together they gathered ochres and sat crushing them with a large rock, then mixing them to produce ‘new colour’. Their inspiration had been bright acrylic paint they had seen selling at the shops. One new colour was a green they discovered by mixing a small amount of charcoal with yellow ochre. Before this, up until about the 1980’s, paintings were the raw palette of brown, red, yellow, white and black ochres.

It is easy to first misinterpret Madigan’s paintings as basic representations, whereas they are complex interwoven stories that relate to and come in and out of her many paintings. As with all traditional based Aboriginal paintings, the surface narrative elements or the painting’s “story” or “Dreaming” are one level of the many layers of an Aboriginal painting’s meaning. The imagery utilised by Aboriginal artists has deep cultural resonances that defy logic and narrative interpretation. The Western viewer can however intuitively feel the power of this spiritual resonance without necessarily having to understand the details which are known by the initiated.

Madigan’s works exemplify the textured ochre painting that characterises work from the Kimberleys. Two of Madigan’s paintings were acquired by the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.