Kittey Malarvie (b.1939 at Brockman gold mine, near Halls Creek, Western Australia) is a celebrated, senior artist. Her rich paintings connect to her traditional desert country south west of Kununurra and north of the Great Sandy Desert.
Malarvie employs circles, motifs, dotting and intersecting lines to map the country along the river banks and interpret the transition of the seasons across a land that is flooded and dry by turns, leaving behind the patterned ground of "luga" cracked mud. Her Milkwater series depicts a meditation on the play of wind and light across a remarkable body of water the colour of milk against black sand. Painting primarily in ochres of pinks, black, greys and milky whites, the artist translates the language of her country into the gestures and utterances of international abstraction.
Malarvie's works are held in museum collections around the world including the US, France and Australia and is a regular finalist in the Hedland and Kimberley Art Awards and the John Fries Memorial Prize.