Anna Petyarre

Anna Petyarre

Anna Petyarre (Pitjara Price), an Anmatyerre woman from the Boundary Bore area of Utopia Station, worked with Gannon House Gallery for nearly twenty years. She began her art making in batik age after her mother, artist Glory Ngale and her aunt, the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Surrounded by creative and inventive artists she began painting at a time when indigenous art began to attract international attention. The Utopia community has produced many of the best known and popular Indigenous artists including Gloria Petyarre, Kathleen Petyarre, Glory Ngale, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Kudditji Kngwarreye among many others.

With the availability of acrylic paint and canvas, Anna Petyarre quickly developed her own unique and delicate style. The small white dots representing the fine yam seeds. The black and coloured details represent the river courses as they carve out the land in the wet. The occasional round circle shapes are the waterholes in her country. Yam Dreaming is an important story for the Eastern Desert women. Yam stories are often incorporated into ceremony prior to the stories being painted on canvas. The Anmatyerre people hold a detailed knowledge water in the desert.

This latest collection of paintings by Anna Petyarre is representative of her style. Petyarre incorporates delicate variation in colour across some of the canvas. All her paintings are well constructed to bring the viewers eye to the feature points of her subject. Her rhythmic application of the small dots evident in the structure of the paintings as they seem to dance and flow across the canvas.

Her work will be on display in the Gallery as soon as they arrive back from the framers. In the mean time look at the images of the work online or ask to see the paintings from the stock room when next in Gannon House. We are very excited to see some new paintings in the Gallery.