Luritja artist Selma Nounay-Coulthardis is one of 200 artists whose works are on display at Alice Springs' Desert Mob art show which opened on Thursday.
Now aged 68, with 14 grandchildren and more on the way, she has been painting at the Iltja Ntjarra (Many Hands) art centre in Alice Springs since the 1970s.
She says that her watercolours are a way to share Luritja dreaming and the culture passed down from her father and grandmothers.
"I'm trying to keep fit because most of life is for painting because that's what keeps me going," she said.
'A safe space for us all'
Nounay-Coulthard says that the Many Hands are centre has provided her as well as other community members with a safe space for them for over 50 years, "We do whatever we like, share our knowledge or the culture of ways or talk problems and things like that, which helps most times."
She began visiting the Many Hands centre in the 1970s and decades later it is where she still paints.
There are more than 30 Aboriginal art centres in the Central Desert region like the Many Hands centre, which are integral to the region's art movement and its communities.
'Thought I might try it'
Nounay-Coulthard is the first artist in her family: her mother was a kitchen hand and her father a stockman.
But when a high school painting of hers was featured in a geography textbook in the 1960s, she was inspired.
"I thought I might try it again next time," she laughed.
Although her paintings come from the renowned tradition of Albert Namatjira, she said she has developed her own style.
Her paintings show the Tempe Downs area where her family would travel by camel in the 1960s.
She believes her sacred lands have recently been revived thanks to floods after a dry time, with her people returning to their sacred areas.
"It hits you and makes you real happy ... finding new things like seeing animals for the first time you know, after they have been hidden away," her artist profile states.
Desert Mob is on at Araluen Art Centre from September 8 till October 23.
