The bold linear pattern of stripes and curves throughout Minnie's painting illustrates Awelye, women's ceremonial body paint design. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, the women trace these designs onto their breasts, arms and thighs, singing as each woman takes her turn to be 'painted-up'. Their songs relate to the dreaming stories of ancestral travel and other totemic plants, animals and natural forces. Awelye, woman's ceremony, demonstrates respect for the land and in performing these ceremonies they ensure well-being and happiness within their communities.
Minnie enjoys using many vivid colours in her paintings, however the traditional colours used during ceremony for her dreamtime stories are red and white. Her stories belong to her country, Atnwengerrp. Atnwengerrp lies in the heartland of Alyawarr country, approximately 200 kilometres to the northeast of Alice Springs, in Central Australia.
