Artist: Gloria Petyarre

Size: 600mm x 600mm

Medium: Acrylic on Linen

Area: Utopia

Language: Anmatyerre

Winner Wynne Prize 1999. Finalist Wynne Prize 2007. Gloria was born around 1945 in her country of Atnangkere. She lived in the traditional ways before moving to one of the established settlements in Utopia. Gloria paints the traditional women business subjects, which are predominant in Utopia. She works using close tonal values of different colors, creating a dynamic optical intensity. Her work features powerful structural linear patterns derived from body painting, outlined with single dots and she continues to her paintings to higher levels of abstraction, continually experimenting with line and color. Her main Dreamings that she paints are the Mountain Devil Lizard, Bean, Emu, Pencil Yam, Grass Seed and Small Brown Grass and well as the traditional body paint designs worn by women. In 1990 she traveled to Ireland, London and India as a representative of the Utopia Women in the 'Utopia - A picture Story' exhibition. (Tandanya, Adelaide, The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin Ireland and the Meat Market Gallery in Melbourne.) In 1991 she had her first solo exhibition at Utopia Art in Sydney. Since then she has exhibited at the National Gallery in Canberra, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jinta Desert Art in Sydney and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. She is also featured extensively in major collections around the world. The National Gallery of Australia, the Robert Holmes a' Court Collection, Museum of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum.