email: artplace@iinet.net.au

 

Art Consultants - Corporate and Private Collections
Member of the Australian Commercial Galleries Association
Member Association of Western Australian Art Galleries
Preferred Provider for the Government of Western Australia

  
 
Madigan Thomas

 


Madigan was born at Baloowa (Violet Valley), which lies south of Warmun.  As a child she worked on the station, in the garden and doing domestic duties in the station house.  In the 1940s, when Violet Valley Station closed down she moved with her family to Mabel Downs Station where her father and brothers worked as stockmen.  As she grew older Madigan joined the men mustering cattle.
When she did not have to work she spent a lot of time in the bush with the old people, learning the old "bush ways".  She left Mabel Downs to move to Wyndham while her children went to school there, and when her children "were grown up" she moved to Warmun Community.
Madigan was inspired to paint by watching old man Thomas and other Warmun artists work.  She is one of the elders of Warmun Community and is a strong law and culture woman.

Selected Group Exhibitions include
2001 "Four Warmun Ngarliwarrin (Women)", Artplace, Perth, WA

2000 Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, NSW
Michael Carr Gallery, NSW
Bett Gallery Hobart, TAS
Commonwealth Institute, London, UK

1999 Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, Sydney, NSW
Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, Perth, WA
Hale School Annual Art Exhibition, Perth, WA
East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra, WA
Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, NT
Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, Vic

1994 Maintaining Family Tradition, International Year of the Family Conference, Adelaide Festival Centre, S.A.

Collections
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Vic, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, W.A., Northern Territory University Art Collection, Darwin, NT, Edith Cowan University Art Collection, Perth, WA, Kerry Stokes Collection, Private Collections

 

Exhibitions