Maralinga Aftermath, Crater Where Four Bodies Were Found

'My political outlook has been sharpened by what has happened to my homeland. Much of my Ancestral land is now inaccessible to me as a consequence of the testing in the Maralinga region in the 1950 and 60s. As well as this my community is suffering many of the social and physical ills that occur in other Aboriginal communities that have been dispossessed.

Over the last few years I have visited my homeland and talked with the Elders and others. I have also taken the opportunity to visit Maralinga, the field of thunder, and the result is that I have produced a number of works that comment on the Atomic tests. As a closely involved person I feel that I’m in a unique position to explore these events. Events that are of major importance to all Australians - black and white.' Johnathan Kumintjara Brown, 1996.

Jonathan Kumintjara Brown (1960 - 1997) created an important body of work relating to the Maralinga atomic tests and the effects on his own people and the environment around the Nullarbor and Great Victoria Deserts. Born at Yalata, South Australia, he was a member of the Stolen Generation and was separated from his Pitjantjatjarra parents at an early age and raised by a white family in New South Wales. Curator J D Mittman in his catalogue essay 'Atomic testing in Australian Art' for the Burrinja Gallery touring exhibition 'Black Mist Burnt Country' (2016) writes that ‘Brown actively sought and eventually found his parents, in the small community of Yalata on the Great Australian Bight in South Australia. He learnt he had a brother and met his parents, but unable to speak their language, felt estranged. The story of the community’s dislocation and the destruction of their lands caused him considerable distress.’

Brown learned that his traditional country included Maralinga, north of Yalata, where nuclear testing by the British and Australian Governments took place between 1953 and 1957. Much of his traditional lands became uninhabitable and access is restricted. This painting makes reference to a well documented case known as 'the Pom Pom incident' that was detailed in the McClellend Royal Commission report (1984/85). In May 1957 the Milpuddie family – Charlie, Edie and two kids - were found by British service personnel camped on the crater left by the bomb Marcoo (Operation Buffalo) soon after it had been detonated.