Timo Hogan

Timo tells of the Tjukurpa within the landscape of Lake Baker, and the inhabitants that made it so. He surveys the Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa (Two Men Creation Line) of his birthright, and brings this into focus on the two-dimensional plane for all to see. Timo grew up with stories of life in the Spinifex Lands. His mother and family dug themselves into the sand dunes to try to avoid the smoke from the Maralinga atomic bomb. Before he was born she walked to a location close to Tjuntjuntjara and found a pile of tin meat left by the patrol officer. A white man came and picked all the people up in an old Landrover and drove them into Cundeelee Mission. Later his mother was driven from Cundeelee to the old hospital in Kalgoorlie for Timo’s birth in 1973.
After his birth, Timo’s mother succumbed to the lure of alcohol in Kalgoorlie and struggled to look after a new baby properly. Timo’s father came and took him to Mt Margaret. He spent his formative years here with his father, Neville McCarthur and his stepmother Alkawari. They lived at Mt Margaret until the family moved to Warburton, closer to his father’s traditional lands. Alkawari did not speak Pitjantjatjara or Ngaanyatjarra as she was from a different Aboriginal tribe, but spoke in English to Timo and he is now fluent in all three languages.
Once back on country Timo’s father took him to all the culturally significant places. He wanted to introduce him to the country, to the spirit caretakers and teach him the law. “My father took me to Lake Baker, all around, rockhole and all. I know all these places but I can’t show them. Millmillpa (dangerously sacred). I’m taking over this country now, as my father is gettng old. I’m the only son and people say we are like twins, my father and me. We look the same. I know how to use spears – he taught me everything.”
Timo went through Men’s Business initiation at Warburton. The group travelled down to Tjuntjuntjara on the business run. “My father’s really a Spinifex Man. His brothers are Hogan and Jamieson”. After going through business Timo settled in Tjuntjuntjara and lived with his mother. His father visited regularly before he got too old to make the long journey.
For a brief period in the 2000’s Timo lived at Kalka as his mother married a man from there. He did his first canvas, a painting of Lake Baker with Ninuku Artists in 2004. After a long break of nearly 10 years he has started painting again. Painting his country, the vast salt lake, the place he now has cultural obligations to look after. A place of power and danger. “I’ve rediscovered my love for painting. I do painting all the time now. I’m painting my country Lake Baker”
In 2021 Timo’s work ‘Lake Baker’ was the overall winner of the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. His works are highly sought after and hang in major public institutions and art museums as well as substantial private collections.