Paddy Bedford an Gija/Kija elder from the Warmun region of the north east Kimberley, Western Australia, was born on Bedford Downs Station, southwest of Warmun (Turkey Creek), Western Australia. As a senior law man, Bedford had been involved in body painting as part of ceremony all his life. It was not until 1998 that he became involved in painting for exhibition, after the establishment of the Jirrawun Aboriginal Art group at Rugun (Crocodile Hole) in 1997. Despite his short career as an artist, of less than 10 years, Bedford's artistic achievements had been remarkably prolific. In 2006, he is one of only eight Indigenous Australian artists to have been commissioned to create a site-specific work for the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, and is exemplified in a number of major Australian and international collections.
Bedford's paintings reveal a deep love of his country. His works depict features of the distinctive landscape such as rivers, stock-yards and roads that were integral to his traditional life and that as a stockman on Greenvale and Bow River Stations, Western Australia. The subject matter of his paintings were inspired by important events during his life, such as the Bedford Downs Massacre, as well as his family dreamings of emu, turkey and cockatoo. He declared that he had painted all of his father's and his mother's country. (Source: The Blurb website www.theblurb.com.au; William Mora Galleries website www.moragalleries.com.au)
