Portrait Gloria Tamerre Petyarre Gloria was born at Atnangkere Soakage, north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Her language is Anmatyerre. She is one of the seven Petyarre sisters who are also artists, such as the well-known Kathleen Petyarre, Violet Petyarre und Ada Bird. Gloria’s aunt is Emily Kngwarreye who is one of the most notable Aboriginal artists. In the 1970s she started batik painting and was a founding member of the Utopia Women’s Batik Group, merging the traditional iconography of the Anmatyerre into the new medium of silk. Being a very innovative and dynamic artist, she exerted great influence on others in the group She exhibited her batik cloths in shows around Australia for ten years. In the early 1980s Gloria started painting on canvas for the CAAMA’s Summer Project exhibition which involved translating the batik paintings onto canvas. She soon developed her unique style depicting the stories of the traditional country, such as Pencil Yam, Emu, Bean, Mountain Devil Lizard and Small Brown Grass. Hers is a unique style that has evolved into abstract fields distinguishable for their well defined segments filled with curved lines. Her paintings – monochromatic or multi-coloured – evoke a strong rhythmic quality. They represent her understanding of bodypaint, leaves and grass. By far her most popular style has been ”Bush Medicine Dreaming”. In these works, Gloria depict the leaves of a particular type of shrub that has medicinal qualities and which Gloria, as a healer, is well practiced in. Gloria Petyarre’s works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions starting from 1991 up to 2010. In 1995/1996 she received a Full Fellowship grant form the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board of the Australia Council. Gloria’s travels include England, Ireland and India in 1990 as part of the Utopia – A Picture Story exhibition. In 1999 Gloria won Australia’s longest running art Prize, the Wynne Landscape Prize, with Leaves , being the first Aboriginal artist to win one of the major prizes of the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. From 1988 onwards, Gloria is represented in major museums and galleries both in Australia and abroad. To name but a few: the National Gallery of Australia; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin; Museum of Victoria, Melbourne; Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Allen, Allen and Hemsley; Gold Coast City Art Gallery; Holmes a Court Collection, Perth; the Westpac Gallery, New York; British Museum, London. Apart from the Wynne Prize, she also received the Tapestry for Victorian Tapestry Workshop Award, Melbourne, in 1993; the Tapestry Commission Award for the Law Courts, Brisbane, in 1994;the Mural for Kansas City Zoo Award, USA, in the same year; the National Works on Paper Award, MPRG, in 1998. Copyright 2012-2013 The Aboriginal Art House