“Sunset Dreaming” Xantia Valentina, Kamilaroi, 2025 Acrylic on canvas, contemporary Aboriginal Dot Painting This piece is about sky country, as we edge closer to warm weather and later sunsets, it’s about excitement and adventure and exploring. There is many suns and stars and constellations, the wavy orange line in the top half of the painting is the Milky Way. I thought about how certain birds travelling through the sky use magnetic fields to know exactly where they are in the world and drawn to exactly where they need to go. I also thought about other pollinators as it’s Australian Pollinator Week, I pictured bees and the stars as if they were flowers, bumbling around to different flowers and collecting nectar and continuing their life cycle that is so crucial to our ecosystem and our own lives. The dramatic colours also reminded me of my experience at the Joy exhibition at the immigration museum here in Melbourne that made me feel so curious and childlike and passionate. I think this painting reflects just how fun it was to finally pick up a paint brush and paint on a real canvas for the first time in quite a while. Painting is so meditative and I love to have all of these thoughts represented with each dot and stroke to bring it to life.