Lucky Morton Kngwarreye

Lucky Morton Kngwarreye was born c.1950 in the Utopia region north east of Alice Springs in central Australia. Lucky is a member of one most famous painting Kngwarreye families, being the last Emily Kngwarreye.

As a young girl, Lucky attended a “bush” school near Hatcher’s Creek north-east of her homelands of Utopia and lived in the country of the MacDonnell Downs Station at the Kurrajong Camp. She attended Bachelor Collect in Alice Springs, and furthered her educated in Darwin.

She began her career in earnest around 1977, participating in group exhibitions with her art, having made the same transition as many of the Utopian artists from batik work. Her early paintings were vividly bright and colourful as she depicted her Traditional stories of women’s body paint, Tharrkarr (honey grevillea) and many desert flowers (Alpeyt) as well as the popular Honey Ant Dreaming (Yerrramp). Lucky paints what she describes as “Two Countries”, representative of the regions in which she was born and has lived - Ngkwarlerlanem and Arnkawenyerr. Her recent paintings show a new direction with beautifully fine and intricate overlay of subtle understated colour images. These paintings are a version of the Rainbow Dreaming – Boor-la-da. The works are fiercely individual and aesthetically pleasing, well received by a wide audience.

Lucky has an impressive profile of exhibitions and collections. She has exhibited with the best of the Utopian artists world-wide, including her mother the renowned artist Mary Morton Kemarre.

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