Born in 1973, Timo Hogan is a Pitjantjatjara artist whose monumental paintings depict Lake Baker, a vast salt lake in Western Australia for which he holds cultural responsibilities. Raised in Mount Margaret and later Warburton, Hogan was taught about his ancestral Country by his father, Neville McArthur, who introduced him to significant spiritual sites and the traditional laws that govern them.
In this dual panel work, Hogan depicts the Wanampi (water serpent) which created Lake Baker while writhing around after being speared by two hunters. This vast work depicts men as black and white roundels in the lower left third of the composition – surveying and watching over the serpent. The characters are the creation beings; those first beings who not only shaped the immediate environment with their actions but leave a moral compass intertwined within the mapped habitat for all to follow.
Hogan’s Lake Baker (2025), can be characterised by bold forms and restrained palettes. As Hogan interweaves the Wanampi through the landscape upon expansive colour blocking, he balances his cultural responsibilities of revealing and concealing. While the heavy and quick application of green and yellow paint conveys a deep and intricate connection to land, law, and lore. His visual restraint and cultural depth position him among a new generation of Indigenous artists articulating ancestral connections through contemporary art.
In 2021, Hogan won the overall prize at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for his work Lake Baker. His work has since been featured in major exhibitions, including Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2021), a solo exhibition at the National Centre for Contemporary Art Artists (2022), and Artists in Focus (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2025).
Lake Baker, 2025
PROVENANCE
Spinifex Arts Project, Western Australia, Australia
$50,000 USD
Born in 1973, Timo Hogan is a Pitjantjatjara artist whose monumental paintings depict Lake Baker, a vast salt lake in Western Australia for which he holds cultural responsibilities. Raised in Mount Margaret and later Warburton, Hogan was taught about his ancestral Country by his father, Neville McArthur, who introduced him to significant spiritual sites and the traditional laws that govern them.
In this dual panel work, Hogan depicts the Wanampi (water serpent) which created Lake Baker while writhing around after being speared by two hunters. This vast work depicts men as black and white roundels in the lower left third of the composition – surveying and watching over the serpent. The characters are the creation beings; those first beings who not only shaped the immediate environment with their actions but leave a moral compass intertwined within the mapped habitat for all to follow.
Hogan’s Lake Baker (2025), can be characterised by bold forms and restrained palettes. As Hogan interweaves the Wanampi through the landscape upon expansive colour blocking, he balances his cultural responsibilities of revealing and concealing. While the heavy and quick application of green and yellow paint conveys a deep and intricate connection to land, law, and lore. His visual restraint and cultural depth position him among a new generation of Indigenous artists articulating ancestral connections through contemporary art.
In 2021, Hogan won the overall prize at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for his work Lake Baker. His work has since been featured in major exhibitions, including Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2021), a solo exhibition at the National Centre for Contemporary Art Artists (2022), and Artists in Focus (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2025).
Other available artworks
