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"Mountain
Devil Lizard Dreaming"
122 cm x 92 cm
Acrylic on linen 1999
$Aud6,500 + GST 10% for sales
in Australia
export price $Aud6,500
Offer under consideration $4,500
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Dreaming
Mountain Devil Dreaming is
referring to the Thorny Devil Lizard that is found throughout central
Australia. It is a small fearsome looking creature that belies a harmless
and placid nature. The ‘thorny’ skin is used to protect the lizard from
predators, and also enables it to blend in easily into the environment,
making it a very elusive creature to catch.
The Aboriginal people believe
that during the Dreamtime, this small lizard used to collect and carry the
ochre colours in a pouch located at the back of its neck. As it walked the
land it used to deposit these ochre colours in various areas throughout the
country. The people would then use these colours in their body painting
ceremonies.
In Mountain Devil Dreaming,
the artist is depicting the pattern of the lizards skin that is used as a
camouflage when danger is near. Not only does the pattern of the skin
change, but also the colour as it blends into the environment making it
virtually invisible. These colours and markings are also used for ceremonial
Body paint Designs.
Mountain Devil Dreaming is
especially important to Gloria Petyarre, as this story is passed down to her
from her Grandfather’s side, Which makes her the custodian and is also a
strong family Dreaming.
Many of the Petyarre family bear markings on
their skin, similar to that found on the thorny lizard, and which medical
science has no explanation for.
Gloria
Petyarre
On
March 19th 1999, Gloria Petyarre was awarded the Wynne Prize
for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. David Gonski,
Chairman of Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales announced the
prize, at twelve noon, before a crowded room thronged with members of
the media. At the time of the announcement Gloria was in a four-wheel
drive vehicle heading away into the desert north-east of Alice Springs.
The artist, unaware of the win, was travelling the Sandover Highway to
Utopia and home.
Gloria was the first Aboriginal person to win one of the three major
prizes (Archibald, Wynne and Sulman) awarded annually at this gallery.
Each of these prizes carries with them a great deal of tradition and
prestige. The Wynne prize is Australia’s longest running art prize and
was awarded first in 1897. It has been won by such famous painters as
Hans Heysen, Elioth Gruner, William Dobell and Lloyd Rees.
Prior to her winning this prestigious award some believed that her work
should stand not just on its Aboriginality but in its own right as
uncategorized ‘contemporary’
art. Daphne Wallace, former curator of the Yiribana Gallery at the AGNSW
and an unabashed admirer of Gloria’s work, enunciated this when she
wrote, ‘I believe that her art should be included in Australian and
Contemporary Art collections and not be restricted to Aboriginal Art
departments’. After her
success in the Wynne Prize this evaluation was strengthened.
During the years after 1996 many observers predicted
that Gloria would soon come to be regarded as Australia’s
outstanding female Aboriginal painter. Prior to that time Emily
Kngwarreye held pride of place in the minds of most collectors and
galleries. Gloria’s victory in the Wynne competition has assured her
position in the history of Australian art and has done much to reduce
the narrowing gap between indigenous and western art here.
Like Turkey Tolson, Gloria Petyarre has the ability to change her style
from painting to painting and the prize-winning suite entitled
‘leaves’ is quite different to many of her other works. She does
always retain, however, a decided simplicity
which is one of the great characteristics of her painting. In
‘Leaves’ she displays a mastery over colour, pattern and design
shown through a highly accomplished technique of brushwork and paint
application. The end result is enchanting and reinforces the notion that
painters such as Gloria who have been brought up in such close contact
with the land are in an authoritative position to picture and record it
when the opportunity arises. The Wynne Prize afforded the perfect
opportunity for Gloria to show her intimate knowledge of the land and
seasons and her own deep spiritual devotion to an area which has been
described by some commentators as ‘the dead heart’ of Australia. For
Gloria, and many thousands of other desert painters such a term is
ludicrous. The landscape is alive, supportive and inspirational. How
else could it become the basis for such a vibrant, sensual work as
‘Leaves’ ?
Through the 1990’s Gloria has insisted on experimenting with her
abstractions. Reviewing an exhibition of her work in 1996, Sebastian
Smee of the Sydney Morning Herald made an interesting comparison
between painters such as Mick Namarari, Gloria and their western
counterparts. He wrote, ‘Their works glow with an intensity rarely
matched by the bluffing, concept driven poses of much current Western
abstraction’.
Therein lays one of the great secrets for the success of
desert art in the decades of the ‘80’s and 90’s.
Utopia, a cluster of outstations some two hundred and seventy kilometres
to the north-east of Alice Springs, is close to the place where Gloria
was born, about 1945. Aboriginal people had been driven from the area in
1927 after the Utopia Pastoral Lease was granted. Fifty years later the
Aboriginal traditional owners were offered a ninety nine years leasehold
on the area. This was accepted and later financed by the Aboriginal Land
Fund Council. Gloria’s country is Atnangkere and she is an Anmatyerre
speaker. The artist is one of seven sisters including the prominent
painters, Kathleen Petyarre, Nancy Petyarre, Violet Petyarre and Ada
Bird Petyarre (qv). The family had lived a traditional, nomadic life
before settling at Utopia.
The
making of batik-designed fabrics, from 1977, was her introduction to
visual art produced with western materials. Gloria is the niece of Emily
Kngwarreye (qv). Together, and in the company of a number of the women
from Utopia, they were instrumental in the production batik fabrics.
Gloria shared in the early success and recognition of the group’s
work. Important early exhibitions of the batik fabrics were held in
Alice Springs (1980) and notably at the Adelaide Festival Centre in
1981. The latter exhibition was titled, ‘Floating Forests of Silk:
Utopia Batik from the Desert’.
There is an important correlation between the designs used there and
painting produced from 1989 with acrylic paints on canvas. Indeed it has
been suggested that, ‘it would be true to say that her paintings are
an evolution of her batik forms’. One
needs to be reminded also of the community-based qualities and ideas
which permeated the ladies’ work at that time. The ‘School of
Utopia’ has a nice ring to it.
Her painting career received a major boost in 1989 when Rodney Gooch
from CAAMA developed a painting concept he titled ‘A Summer
Project’. Artists were asked to take their batik skills and techniques
and use them to produce paintings with acrylics on canvas. A
ground-breaking exhibition was held at the S H Ervin Gallery in Sydney
and later at the Orange Regional Gallery in New South Wales. The project
received a warm acceptance and this influenced Gloria and other artists
to take up painting on a full time basis.
Individuals did, as a matter of course, develop their own ways of
painting on canvas. Gloria has a vibrant personality which is
exemplified by her wide smile and happy nature. Her exuberance and
freedom of spirit are factors which
have been partly responsible for the maturation of her painting style.
Of course the appearance of her painting is conditioned also by the
dreamings that she relates. These include the ‘mountain devil’,
‘bush medicine’, ‘bean’, ‘emu’, ‘pencil yam’, ‘grass
seed’ and ‘small brown grass’ as well as traditional body paint
designs.
Following the success of the 1989 exhibition Gloria became involved with
the Utopia group on another level when it was decided that she should
accompany an international exhibition – ‘Utopia; A Picture Story’
overseas. Through 1990 and 1991 she traveled to venues in Ireland,
London and India with the show. In
Australia it was shown in Adelaide and Melbourne. Her own reputation and
the reputation of the Utopia women generally was greatly enhanced.
The
interest generated meant that demand for her work increased. Since 1991 Gloria has had six one-person
exhibitions. The latest of these, in 1998-99, was a touring exhibition
shown at the Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, New England
Regional Art Museum and the Manly Art Gallery and Museum. 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 galleries and collections
in Australia and around
the world including The National Gallery of Australia, the Robert Holmes a' Court
Collection, Museum of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum.
©
Jinta Desert Art 2001
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