The stories Michelle paints have
been passed to her from both her grandfather and grandmother’s sides. In this painting, Michelle depicts minyma inma,
women’s ceremony. Michelle maps the topography of her ancestral country from a
bird’s-eye point of view, depicting certain sacred women’s sites in the remote
Western Desert. Inma, ceremony, involves a collection of ritual
traditions for Aboriginal women, and include modalities of rhythm, song, dance,
and application of traditional body paint designs - all intricate pieces of a culturally and
spiritually complex whole. These sites hold stories of travelling ancestors and
creator spirits who would pass through and gather at certain places to rest or
perform ceremony.