Gloria Petyarre

Gloria Tamerre Petyarre (c. 1938-1945), an Anmatyerre woman from Aknangkere Country, near Alice Springs, is one of Australia's most acclaimed Aboriginal painters. She is probably the best-known Utopia artist after her late aunt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Petyarre first gained recognition for her batiks, exhibiting from 1977 with the Utopia Women's Silk Batik Group. Although she only began painting in acrylics on canvas in the late 1980s, since her first solo exhibition in 1991 she has had a dedicated following of public and private collectors in Australia and internationally. Using layers of tapering dots, dashes and swirling lines, her many paintings portray Awelye (women's ceremonies and body paint designs) and various Dreamings, including the Mountain Devil Lizard and her signature, Bush Medicine Leaves. Petyarre was awarded the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW in 1999 for one of her Leaves works, the first Aboriginal artist to receive this coveted award for landscape painting.

Photographer Greg Weight took this image of Petyarre sitting on the tailgate of the community ute, which was used to travel to the store at Delmore Station to buy petrol, provisions and art materials. As Weight noted in his book Australian Artists: 'When the artists from Utopia travelled to the Station they often sat under "the talking tree" and painted.'

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Gregory Weight/Copyright Agency, 2024