Seven Sisters Dreaming, 2023

Madeline Curley grew up in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, a vast region in the north-west of South Australia into the Northern Territory, where a number of Indigenous communities are located. Madeline attended school in the remote community of Kaltjiti (formerly Fregon) and later Woodville High in Adelaide. Madeline is the daughter of renowned artist, Imitjala Curley; her sister Maria and Meredith Curley are also talented artists. Madeline is a self-taught artist and has developed a fluid and sweeping style of painting to illustrate aspects of the famous Kungakarangkalpa Tjukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming) story, a huge and significant songline that intersects the entire continent. Madeline paints a part of the story that takes place on her ancestral country, where the sisters travel across the expansive arid land. The sisters use their deep knowledge of the country and its plants and animals to help them as they travel, constantly navigating and evading the presence of Nyiru, a “bad man” who pursues the women with the intention of making one of the sisters his wife. Nyiru was a clever man, a shape-shifter. As they continue to escape him, Nyiru plays “tricks” on the women, such as turning himself into a fruit tree or hiding in a rockhole full of water to tempt the women closer. The older sisters are wary of these tricks, and help steer each other clear of Nyiru’s bad intentions. The roundels on the canvas represent the waterholes and rockholes where the sisters camped, and the overlay of finely dotted winding lines are the paths walked by the women and the ever-changing topography that they pass through, guiding and protecting each other. Madeline is a widely exhibited artist, and in 2019 her artwork was projected onto the Sydney Opera House sails as part of the 'Badu Gili' program. This artwork was painted in the studio of This Is Aboriginal Art, Mparntwe (Alice Springs).

This painting feels like movement remembered—fierce, rhythmic, and deeply feminine. Madeline Curley’s rendering of the Seven Sisters Dreaming carries an urgency that is both ancestral and immediate. There’s grace in her gesture, but also resistance. We’re drawn to how Madeline tells this story: not just as daughter of a celebrated artist, but as a woman shaping her own visual rhythm. Her mark-making is instinctual—alive with presence, yet never overstated. The sisters’ flight across Country becomes almost cinematic in her hands, each waterhole a breath, each dotted line a tether between past and present. This piece stays with us. It reminds us of the power of women traveling together—moving, evading, enduring.

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