Dawson's paintings depict creation stories from the Dreamtime and concepts from his spirituality. They illustrate his family's Dreaming and how their ancestors created the land. His birthplace is on the Dreaming track (or "songline") of the (Goanna Man), the path travelled by one of his ancestors from the Dreamtime whose totem is the perentie lizard. The scenes in his paintings are from the places he travelled as a boy with his family in the central Australian desert.