Biddee Baadjo

Biddee Baadjo was born near Purrpurn, a spring water site in the Great Sandy Desert about 1938.

Biddee recounts that when she was still a baby, she was snatched by an eagle. All the women carried their babies in a coolamon. Biddee had been left with others in the spinifex, while her parents were hunting. Her mother saw the eagle and ran after it. The eagle dropped Biddee down in the Spinifex country, where her mother found her crying.
When the Canning Stock Route was being established, Baadjo and other Wangkajungka and Walmajarri people moved from their country in the desert to the Fitzroy Valley area, where most found work on cattle stations.

In the 1980’s Wangkatjungka Community was established on land excised from Christmas Creek station. From 1994 to 1998 some senior desert people began recording their stories when Karrayili adult education service opened an annex at Wangkatjungka Community, Numeracy and literacy classes were held, and access was given to art materials and people were encouraged to paint by teacher Graeme Blackley. When the Karrayili annex closed in 1998, a number of senior people had became adept at painting and had begun exhibiting their work in Perth as well as other cities.

In 1998 senior Wangkatjungka artists completed a large collaborative canvas showing their traditional country. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2002 Wangkatjungka artists began an active program of exhibitions to present their works around Australia.

Biddee is known for paintings of very intricate detail of country with fine dot markings and rich colour combinations

Today Biddee lives at Wangkatjungka Community with husband Luurn Willy Kew. Her paintings have been exhibited in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Broome, Darwin and Hobart.