Biographies

Belinda Golder Kngwarreye was born in 1986 and is an Anmatyerre speaker from the Utopia region of Central Australia, situated approximately 130km north-east of Alice Springs. Belinda comes from a long line of significant and well-established artists. She is the daughter of Bessie Petyarre; her sister is Janet Golder Kngwarreye and both artists are the grandaughters of Polly Ngale. Her great aunts are artists Kathleen Ngale and Angelina Ngale. In her depictions of the seeds, flowers and fruit of the bush plum –an important dreaming story as well as food source for her people. Belinda is following in the footsteps of these, and other highly regarded artists of the Kngwarreye family, especially Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and Kudditji Kngwarreye.

Bernadine Kemarre is an Arrernte woman born in 1974 at Santa Teresa, NT. She moved to the Eastern Desert community of Utopia to marry Stephen Price Pitjarra the brother of well known artist Anna Price Petyarre. In her art Bernadine follows the great tradition of many of Utopia’s famous women artists such as Gloria Petyarre whose paintings are of bush medicine leaves, bush tucker and other plants of her lands. The style of her bush medicine leaves paintings is highly detailed and she is a skilled colourist, blending many shades of similar or complementary colours together with great skill. Bush Medicine

Leaves are collected by the women and are used in a variety of different ways. They can be boiled in water and the liquid used as a drinking medicine. This medicine can ease stomach-ache. The leaves can also be crushed and mixed with Kangaroo Fat to create a salve that is applied to burns. As a bush woman, Bernadine is familiar with her land and its abundance of bush tucker species, medicine plants and native fauna. These are the stories inherited by her, along with important women’s stories, and which form the basis of her paintings. Since she started painting in the late 1990s, Bernadine’s work has become more refined and is eagerly sought after by collectors and art enthusiasts throughout Australia and internationally.

Caroline Petrick Ngwarreye is an Eastern Arrernte and Alyawarr women born c 1966. Her traditional country is Irrerlirre approximately 250km northeast of Alice Springs in the beautiful Harts Range. Caroline developed her artistic talents under the tutelage of her mother Jill Kelly Kemarre. Her subtle paintings of intricate patterns of dot work and splashes of colour relate to her mother’s country and stories from Irrwelty. These stories include arnwekety – conkerberry, ntange – seeds and awelye – women’s ceremony. The intricate pattern of dot and line work throughout Caroline’s painting reflects her mother’s traditional country Irrwelty, which lies on Alyawarre land approximately 300 kms north east of Alice Springs in Central Australia.

Charmaine Pwerle is an Anmatyerre woman born in Alice Springs in 1976. She grew up on the Utopia homelands and went to school in Adelaide as well as living and working in Melbourne before returning to live in Alice Springs and her Utopia lands. Her mother is famed painter Barbara Weir and her grandmother the equally famous Minnie Pwerle - the rights to whose stories she has inherited and which she paints. Other famous women painters close to Charmaine include her great aunts Emily, Galya and Molly Pwerle and her extended family relatives Gloria Petyarre and the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye. A fully initiated woman, Charmaine has four children and lives at Irrultja on the Utopia lands. Always a talented artist her work has developed a great vivacity and surety as she herself matures and has the rights, through initiation and heritage, to paint the stories and the country of her grandmother, Minnie

Pwerle with whom she spent much time as a young woman. The large circular images in her paintings represents ceremonial sites, the linear design represents the tracks used when searching for food. The small circular designs are the seeds of the bush melon seed and the curvilinear shapes depict ‘Awelye’ or women’s ceremonial body-paint design. Charmaine Pwerle’s work is highly sought after by galleries and collectors.

Emily Pwerle’s country is Atnwengerrp and her languages are Anmatyerre and Alyawarr. She was possibly born in the early 1930s (no records exist) and lives in Irrultja, a tiny settlement in Utopia of about 100 people. She has had little exposure to western culture and only picked up a paintbrush for the first time in 2004. Sister of the late Minnie Pwerle, Emily Pwerleʼs extended family are all artists: Barbara Weir, Aileen and Betty Mpetyane. She started painting professionally with her sisters Galya and Molly in collaboration with Minnie Pwerle. Pwerle paints ‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’, meaning women’s ceremony, which is depicted by a series of lines and symbols, often criss-crossed patterns that are layered across the canvas with colours that are explosive, colourful and energetic. The patterns represent the designs painted on women’s bodies during bush tucker ceremonies in Atnwengerrp.

Esther Haywood

Petyarre is a young Alyawarre woman born in 1982. Her grandmother ws the famous artist the late Gloria Petyarre. Her grandmother gave Esther the right to paint her famous bush medicine leaf paintings. Esther is just starting out in her artistic career and her work is gaining a lot of attention for her fine renditions of the leaves used in bush medicine – showing a similar dynamism, sense of movement and glowing colouration as did her grandmother’s famous paintings.

Janet Golder

Kngwarreye is an Anmatyerre woman born in 1973. She is the daughter of Margaret Golder and Sammy Pitjara. Her grandfather is Old Henry Pitjara and renowned artists Angelina Ngale and Polly Ngale are her grandmothers. Famed artist Greeny Purvis was Janet’s uncle. Janet is married to Ronnie Bird, son of artists, Paddy and Eileen Bird. Together they have four children. Janet has been painting since the late 1990s. She is entitled to paint a number of themes including Awelye (ceremonial body paint design), Mountain Devil Lizard and Emu and has become well known for her encyclopaedic, striking and detailed paintings that depict many of these stories together in the one canvas.

Jeannie Mills

Pwerle is an Alyawarre speaker born in 1965. She was in the first group of Utopia women painters who put their stories onto canvas in 1989. Called The Summer Project the subsequent exhibition of these works set a new benchmark for the art of Utopia, launching the artists into what was to become a highly significant, multigenerational, and ongoing school of art. Jeannie is the daughter of the well-known artist, Dolly Mills and niece of the Utopia elder and acclaimed artist, Greeny Purvis Petyarre. Her main painting theme is the Bush Yam, or Anaty, - a staple food for many Utopia people as well an important dreaming story, celebrated in ceremonies by the Utopia women. A widely exhibited artist Jeanie was a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2008 and her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Holmes a Court collection and in many other private collections.

Lizzie Moss Pwerle was born in the early 1940s and is an Alyawarra woman from Atnwengerrp. She is a first cousin to Minnie Pwerle and was part of

Utopia’s early batik making projects. In her paintings Lizzie uses a series of intricate dots to portray the movement of Awelye –womens ceremony. The linear work indicates the lines that the women make in the red sand when they dance their stories that belong to Atnwengerrp country. Her work has been included in exhibitions in leading public and private galleries in Australia and internationally.

Rochelle Bird

Mbitjana was born in the early 1940s and is an Alyawarra woman from Atnwengerrp. She is a first cousin to Minnie Pwerle and was part of Utopia’s early batik making projects. In her paintings Lizzie uses a series of intricate dots to portray the movement of Awelye –womens ceremony. The linear work indicates the lines that the women make in the red sand when they dance their stories that belong to Atnwengerrp country. Her work has been included in exhibitions in leading public and private galleries in Australia and internationally.

Selina Teece

Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny, which lies in Alyawarr country north of the Utopia region in

Central Australia. Selina grew up in the 1980s and 90s surrounded by famous artists of the Utopia school of painting and developed her own artistic talents at a very young age and is increasingly revealing a great versatility as an artist. Her painting themes range from depictions of gum blossoms and the leaves of the spinifex plant to landscapes that relate the stories from her father’s country Antarrengeny. Notable for its fine sense of colour and balanced design, Selina is dedicated to furthering her artistic career and is proving to be one of the most exciting newer talents of the younger generation artists of the Eastern Desert school of painting.