Portrait Abie Loy Kemarre (Akemarr) Abie Loy Kemarre, the eldest of five children was born in 1972 at Utopia Station approximately 250 km north-east of Alice Springs. Her parents are Ray Loy Pula and Margaret Loy. Abie speaks Eastern Anmatyerre with English as a second language. Abie devides her time between her homeland at Mosquito Bore, Adelaide and Lake Nash (Alpurrurulam) near the Queensland border. Abie Loy is a rising star artist from Utopia and a member of a family of widely acclaimed artists. Her grandmother is the famous painter Kathleen Petyarre. As a young child Abie observed Kathleen and her sister, the equally celebrated artist Gloria Petyarre, working with batik. She started working in this medium herself and did it so well that her work in batik has been exhibited in Bali. At age 22, Abie began painting under the tutelage and influence of her grandmother Kathleen who helped her develop the fine dotting technique resulting in the highly delicate shimmering dots that Abie uses in most of her artoworks including her celebrated motif entitled “Bush Hen” or “Bush turkey”. She inherited this dreaming from her grandfather. The Bush Hen Dreaming belongs to the country of Artenya and its trail moves right across to Mosquito Bore where it is said to end. Mythologically, the bush hen travels across the country looking for bush seeds that are scattered over the land as is illustrated by the fine dotting in these paintings. The bird also looks for bush plums and bush tomatoes that bear a yellow fruit called Arkitjira. From around 2001 / 2002 onwards Abie began experimenting with the elements of line, colour and form, resulting in a more linear, abstract and expressionistic style as can be seen in her “Sandhills” and the “Women Body Painting” series. In these she depicts the patterns used in traditional women’s sacred ceremonies. The actual substances used to paint bodies during ceremony traditionally consist of natural ochres that are applied with the fingers to the chest, breast and shoulders of women about to partake in ceremony. These ceremonies are performed with song and dance cycles telling stories of the Bush Hen Dreaming. The deep spiritual meaning is only accessible to the participating women of the Utopia area and therefore not known to the wider non-indigenous population. Abie’s powerful Body Paint images could be interpreted as abstract and expressionist. Abie Loy Kemarre combines her innovative extremely fine painting technique with complex optical effects. Her unique style has brought her critical acclaim and places her at the leading edge of the contemporary Aboriginal and Australian art movement. Abie’s works are held in major collections all over the world and she has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. (Solo exhibitions between 2003 and 2006 in Australia, Group exhibitions between 1997 and 2010 worldwide.) She has twice been a finalist in the Telstra NATSIAA awards. Copyright of The Aboriginal Art House 2012-2013