The Petyarre Sisters 2007 Online Exhibition, 12 - 27 Nov 2007

02.11.07 | by Sabine Haider

We are excited to announce the launch of a new online exhibition The Petyarre Sisters 2007 Australian Aboriginal Art from Utopia. The online exhibition will feature fantastic new works from five of the Petyarre Sisters and will open on Monday 12 November.

We are excited to present our first online exhibition from Central Art – Aboriginal Art Store.

For this exhibition, Sabine has chosen to exhibit fifteen works from the dynamic dynasty - five of the Petyarre Sisters.

The Petyarre sisters stand unique as a group of women who have as a family dominated women’s art in Australia for two decades. With the exception of Ada who is now in ill health, the sisters continue to produce outstanding art and to maintain their status and prominence as significant Aboriginal artists.

Kathleen Petyarre, Gloria Petyarre, Ada Petyarre, Myrtle Petyarre and Violet Petyarre commenced contemporary painting in 1988 when batik was introduced to their community in Utopia. The quality of these works suprised the world and the batiks they produced are now rare collectable pieces, in the Robert Holmes a Court Collection.

The sisters began using acrylic on canvas in the nineties and since then they have produced a vast body of elaborate and highly sought after work.

The Petyarre sister’s art has been celebrated in major collections and exhibitions both within Australia and internationally.

For this exhibition I have selected the works for the quality, colour and style. I have chosen to put the works from the five sisters side by side in order to demonstrate their varied styles.

The Petyarre sisters all inherited the Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming and their work represents this totem with each artist interpreting the Dreaming story in her unique way.

My motivation for presenting these works is to show the strength of the work of this unique artistic family and to honour their continuous outpouring of art as they in turn through their art honour their ancestors and their culture.

Sabine Haider 2007