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Published by CompNet Systems on

Canning Stock Route Area

“This painting is about waterholes in the desert where the old people used to walk from waterhole to waterhole in the Canning Stock Route area. All the colours represent the different wildflowers and the brown is the sand dunes. The circles represent different waterholes.”
 – Bibianna Tumbler

This artwork reflects the histories and journeys along the Canning Stock Route, a place where desert families walked, camped, hunted and gathered long before the line of wells was made. For Bidyadanga artists whose families travelled this Country, the Stock Route is remembered not as a road, but as a pathway of life — water soaks, claypans, sandhills, stories and camps passed down through generations.

The painting holds memories of living waterholes (jila), spinifex plains and salt lakes, places where families met, rested, shared food and continued on. It also speaks to the changes brought with the drovers — movement from desert to mission, cultural resilience, and the strength of families who carried language, story and law across the land.

Patterns, dots and flowing lines reflect walking tracks, dunes, waters and landmarks across Nyangumarta, Mangala and Martu Country. In this work, the artist honours the old people who travelled with nothing but knowledge, and celebrates their legacy — the strength of culture that continues today.



Dimensions: 46 x 76cm

Categories: Bidyadanga Aboriginal Community LaGrange Inc

Name: Bibianna Tumbler

Language: Juwaliny

Community: Bidyadanga

Biography:

“I was born at La Grange at the old hospital. I grew up there and have been there all my life with my parents. I started painting in 2015. What inspired me the most is the way the old people used to tell me stories about their Country and their families’ background. When they used to paint, they used the colours to represent the land, seas, flowers, animals and other things.”
– Bibianna Tumbler

Bibianna’s paintings often depict her Grandfather’s Country in the Great Sandy Desert, showing red desert sands, waterholes, wildflowers, and bush foods such as kumpaja (bush nuts). Her works carry the memory of ancestors walking the desert, searching for bush tucker and water, and reflect the colours of both desert and sea. She began painting in 2015 and continues to share the stories passed down by her Elders through her detailed use of line, colour, and circle motifs.

Her talent has been recognised across the Kimberley. In 2025, Bibianna won the Indigenous Art Award at the Shinju Art Award in Broome and the Kimberley Art and Photography Prize in Derby.

“Through storytelling and painting about Grandfather or Grandmother’s Country, I can help teach future generations.”
– Bibianna Tumbler

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