Gloria Petyarre

Gloria Tamerre Petyarre was born in c. 1945, Atnangkere Soakage in central Australia. Gloria Petyarre is a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art from the Utopia region.

Gloria Petyarre won Australia's longest running art prize, the Wynne Prize in 1999 with Leaves, being the first Aboriginal person to win one of the Art Gallery of New South Wales major prizes. She travelled to Ireland, England and India in 1990 as part of the Utopia – A picture story exhibition. She held her first solo exhibition in 1991. She is represented in major Australian galleries such as the National Gallery of Australia. She is the niece of Emily Kngwarreye and the younger sister of Kathleen Petyarre, two noted Aboriginal artists.

Gloria lived at the Utopia community after 1977, where she started batik painting, exhibiting in shows around Australia for ten years. She began work on the 'Summer Project' in 1989 which involved translating the batik paintings onto canvas. She was one of the founding members of this Utopia Women's Batik Group. She paints several Dreamtime stories such as Pencil Yam, Bean, Emu and Mountain Devil Lizard and Small Brown Grass. Her paintings – monochromatic or multi-coloured - are distinguishable for their well defined segments filled with curved lines, and evoke a strong rhythmic quality. Her style has evolved into abstract fields that represent leaves, grasses and body paint.

In 1995/96, she received a Full Fellowship Grant from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board of The Australia Council. In 1999, Gloria Petyarre was awarded the prestigious Wynne Prize for a Landscape Painting.

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Collections:

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Art Gallery of Queensland, Brisbane
Art Gallery of N.S.W., Sydney
Flinders University, Adelaide
Griffith University Collection
Gold Coast City Art Gallery
Queensland University of Technology
Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin
Supreme Court, Brisbane
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Westpac Gallery, New York, U.S.A.
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, U.S.A.
Robert Holmes a Court Collection
Wollongong University Collection
Artbank, Sydney
Macquarie Bank
Singapore Art Museum
British Museum, London, U.K

Exhibitions:

1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Utopia Art Sydney
1988 Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney
1998 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
1989 Austral Gallery, St Louis, U.S.A.
1989 Coventry Gallery, Sydney
1990 Tandanya, Adelaide
1990 "Utopia", exhibited in Ireland, U.K., India
1990 Orange Regional Gallery
1990 Third Eye Centre, Glasgow
1991, 1996 S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
1991 Meat Market Gallery, Melbourne
1991, 1994, 1995, Art Gallery of N.S.W.
1991 Australia Galleries, New York, U.S.A.
1992, 1994, 1995, 1999 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
1992 Robert Homes a Court Collection, Bangkok, Thailand
Gallery Rai,Tokyo, Japan
1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002 Royal Exhibition Hall, Melbourne
1992 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
1993 Myra Morgan Gallery, Kansas, U.S.A.
1993 Art Gallery of Queensland, Brisbane
1993 Austral Gallery, St Louis, U.S.A.
1993 Australian Embassy, Paris, France
1995 National Gallery of Australia - Canberra Museum of Art, Gifu, Japan
1995 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1995 Mitchell Galleries, State Library of N.S.W.
1995 Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
1996 Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
1996, 2000 Old Parliament House, Canberra
1996, 1999 Sherman Galleries, Sydney
1996 William Mora Galleries, Melbourne
1997 Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
1997 Australian Galleries, Sydney
1998 Annandale Galleries, Sydney
1999 Art Gallery of Western Australia
1999 Embassy of Australia, Washington, U.S.A.
1999 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, U.S.A.
2000 Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane
2000 Australian National University, Canberra
2001 Brisbane City Gallery
2001 Manawatu Gallery, New Zealand
2001 Kunst der Gegenwart, Vienna, Austria
2001 "Icons of Australian Aboriginal Art", Singapore
2002 Singapore Art Museum
2002 Light Square Gallery, Adelaide
2002, 2003 National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square, Melbourne
2002, 2003 Chapel off Chapel, Melbourne
2003 Glen Eira City Gallery, Melbourne

Awards:

1999 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of N.S.W.
1993 Tapestry for Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, Vic
1993 Mural for Kansas City Zoo, U.S.A.
1994 Tapestry Commission for the Law Courts, Brisbane, Qld

Central Art Exhibitions:

Source: Kreczmanski, Janusz B & Birnberg, Margo (eds.): Aboriginal Artists: Dictionary of Biographies: Central Desert, Western Desert & Kimberley Region (JB Publishing Australia, Marleston, 2004) © Artist image photographed by Sabine Haider , Central Art June August 2009

Video & Audio Features:

Bush Medicine Dreaming - Video Interview with Aboriginal Artist Gloria Petyarre

Artist: Gloria Petyarre

Skin Name: Petyarre

Language: Anmatyerre

Region: Utopia

Vendor: Central Art

Dreaming: Angertla (Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming) Engcarma (Bean) Bush Medicine Dreaming Awelye (Women's Ceremonies) Unyara (Emu) Annlara (Pencil Yam) Kadjeta (Grass Seeds) Elaitchurunga (Small Brown Grass)

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