The earliest works consisted for the most part of black graphic images set against a
red background but the later works had a more developed ochre palette of reds, sepias,
yellows and black, with landscape forms delineated in white dots - and shown either in
profile or from an aerial perspective. Thomas's ochre paintings were produced on canvas and
paper utilising earth-ochres and vegetable gum, and despite their apparent simplicity they
included specific individual references to roads, river beds, hills, valleys, plains and dry lake
beds.
Nevertheless, Thomas was primarily concerned with the inherent spirituality of the
landscape. To this extent, his paintings are both literal and metaphysical - the compositions
depicting specific physical locations while also being vitally concerned with the essentially
spiritual associations that provide these locations with their most profound significance. As
one commentator has observed, for Thomas the landscape was embued with mythological
power - his painting was an act of homage to this power. Through his painting process,
Thomas was 'consciously re-tracing not only his own intimate knowledge of hill, valley,
homestead, dry creek bed and swollen rivers. In his mind and in his canvases, he [was],
simultaneously, re-living a personal and group history. This mind-set [tied] him to places and
a time that extended beyond the recent past, into a mythological dimension that lives in every
animal and physical feature of the Kimberley landscape.' Roads and river beds were painted
in black pigments; hills, valleys, plains and dry lake beds were rendered in reds, yellows and
black.
The Krill Krill paintings marked a major development in Thomas' career as an artist
and the Krill Krill songs themselves were rich in mythic imagery and topographical detail. In
the song verses we learn that the woman's spirit is accompanied by a 'devil devil' ( another
spirit ) called Jimpi who takes her to her Dreaming country where she is shown the legendary
'half-kangaroo' being that once inhabited this land. She also encounters the spirits of dead
Aborigines slain in earlier times by white settlers. Later she visits a crocodile hole inhabited
by a Rainbow Serpent, and subsequently encounters the legendary Pangkali (a bat) and
Lumuku (a blue-tongued lizard). After visiting Bow River bridge she comes to Wangkul,
where she had her accident, and finds a snake. Near Wyndham she meets another devil,
Manginta, who becomes her new spirit-guide as Jimpi departs. The two spirit beings meet the
Dreaming Kangaroo at Nine Mile and create a song about it. Then, after passing through the
hills on Carlton and Ivanhoe Stations, they come to Kununurra Bridge and eventually look
across to Darwin. Here they see that Darwin has been destroyed by the Rainbow Serpent
Wungurr (otherwise known as Cyclone Tracy).
Thomas produced images