Later, with her husband Fred Grant, Carlene was influential in the movement for their people to return to their Country and reclaim their Native Title from the state. It wasn’t until November 2000 that the Federal Court determined Native Title for the Spinifex people, formally recognising them as the rightful owners of their Country.

Carlene West broke away from the formal conventions of desert painting, but only once was she able to return to her birthplace of Tjitjiti after fifty years of absence. The dominant feature that marks the landscape at Tjitjiti is a vast salt pan contoured by undulating sand hills that are covered in a lattice of tawny spinifex and saltbush. This landmark became a rich source of inspiration for Carlene in shaping and colouring the majority of the artist’s solo works. Her paintings of Tjitjiti before and after her eventual return in 2010 are vastly different. Once she was finally able to re-engage with the Country, the sandhills and lake of the ancestral narrative began to emerge in her singular style, rich with the intimacy and feeling of this place.

Carlene has been a contributing artist to numerous group exhibitions in Australia and internationally. In 2014, she was invited to hold a solo exhibition at Raft Artspace in Alice Springs. Her works depicting Tjtitji are held in significant public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.