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.

For the exhibition and book Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R. Ian Lloyd (2007), art critic John McDonald and National Geographic photographer Lloyd travelled 50,00 km around Australia over three years. This photograph shows Petyarre painting in a shed in Alice Springs. Lloyd and McDonald watched her, seemingly 'completely unflappable', as she applied layer upon layer of tapering dots with patient repetitive strokes, making another of the many paintings with which she has long helped to support her relatives in Utopia.

Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© R Ian Lloyd/Copyright Agency, 2023