Kathleen (Kanta) Donnegan Australian, Pitjantjatjara, b. c. 1944

Kanta was born circa 1944 in the gentle sand plain country of southern Spinifex between the Tjuntun and Unpun rock holes. The ubiquitous men’s tjukurpa, Wati Kutjara (Two Men) courses through the middle of Kanta's country on its way east to S.A. where it acts as the lynch pin for two other men’s tjukurpa heading to a common destination at Kaliwani (Lake Maurice). 
Kanta went into Cundeelee Mission in the late 1950s sweep a young married woman without children. Kanta had one son and three daughters by her first husband (dec.) in Cundeelee and returned to Spinifex in the first wave of re-settlers in 1984. Apart from attending the odd exhibition or women’s trip to the outside Kanta has not left the desert lands since. Several years after the Rictor family came in from northern Spinifex she married one of the sons, Ian - her kuri pikitja, often translated as “promised one”. As if forged by the early years in her country Kanta is gentle soul and has assiduously painted with the Spinifex Community since representing her country in the women’s native title painting in 1997.
Kanta’s own works are succinct and economic but also fulsome without being too busy. In effect they are patently honest portrayals of her country between Tjuntun, Unpun and Kapi Piti Kutjara - an epitome of the artist herself.