Each is associated with particular colors and proportions. Nearly all art forms combine light and dark colors, regardless of the social identity of the artist or of the audience. In rock art, moiety is encoded in the stone through the color of the rock and the moiety of the land. Thus, a rock painting can conform to the principle of joining Dhuwa and Yirritja even if the painting is made in a single color. The clearest social influence on art is the gender of the artist.
Women work mainly with fiber, while men emphasize wood and paint.
Sharp, gender-based differences between art forms may be interpreted as a way of reflecting and reinforcing gender differences in Barunga society. Art is a link to the ideological realm for male artists who depict totemic species and ancestral and mythological figures. This highly structured art is an affirmation that the artist is meeting his responsibilities to the ancestral world, actually maintaining it in some way. It communicates information about Dreaming stories and is tied to land and rights of inheritance. Women's art, on the other hand, has neither this explicit spiritual dimension nor clear-cut links to land.