REFLECTING BACK ON SOME ROAD trips and dreaming them up in the subsequent months can be like reliving a favourite film or book – standout lines, cinematic sequences and characters who enchant and inspire – and some gouge into the flesh and not only pepper your mind with brilliant images but give you a kind of painterly lift-off.

My arrival at the Iltja Ntjarra / Many Hands Art Centre on the edge of Alice Springs and approaching the long painting tables I had all the trepidation of a young intern fronting up to a corporate boardroom. Surreptitious summings-up, lowered eyes and gingerly made introductions quickly became whinnies of laughter and excitedly made plans to head out later that week to paint the hills surrounding Standley Chasm.

The preceding weeks has been spent emailing and