William Mackinnon’s Phoenix exhibition reflects the artist’s experiences living and working with Aboriginal communities in the Western Desert and Kimberley regions. As a field officer with Papunya Tula Artists in 2008-2009, Mackinnon witnessed both the extraordinary beauty of Aboriginal Country and the complex realities of remote community life, where isolation and hardship are balanced with cultural vitality and humour.
In Phoenix, Mackinnon transforms everyday moments – long desert roads, a football game, abandoned cars – into scenes charged with emotional intensity. The rusting machinery, dark skies and quiet figures that inhabit his canvases are not symbols of despair but testaments to resilience.
Presented with permission from Papunya Tula Artists, these paintings represent the artist’s reckoning with his experiences of that time, an empathetic meditation on beauty and survival.
Phoenix opens at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory on Saturday 21 February and runs until 24 May 2026.
Image caption: William Mackinnon, Kiwirrkurra Blues, 2019, Acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on canvas, 150 X 200 cm. Courtesy the artist.
For more information click here
