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UTOPIA:
Connecting Land + Ceremony
February 16 - 1 March
Metropolis Gallery is proud to present in association with the Dreaming Art Centre of Utopia an exhibition of paintings by prominent Aboriginal artists from the Utopia region, including Gloria Petyarre, Emily Pwerle, Minnie Pwerle, Barbara Weir, Molly Pwerle and Galya Pwerle. There is also a fine selection of rare works on paper by Gloria Petyarre.
From the dense, swaying brushstrokes of Barbara Weir’s Grass Seed Dreaming paintings to Gloria Petyarre’s Bush Medicine and Mountain Devil Dreaming and the Women’s Ceremony paintings of Emily Pwerle, these expressive works represent the continuing ancient, oral stories that give Aboriginal people practical information about their land, flora, fauna and culture. Utopia artists’ paintings depict seeds, grasses, berries, yams and other plants that are important to women’s ceremonies and reference ceremonial body designs that curve and bend as they follow the contours of the body.
Barbara Weir has said that her older relatives talk longingly of the days before the farming of cattle began in the 1920s, which impacted heavily on native plants and wildlife food sources. “It’s what we think of when we paint- this land, our stories, the food we could make by grinding seeds, making flour, picking fruit.”
In 1977, Suzie Bryce and a Pitjantjatjara woman, Yipati Williams conducted a batik workshop at Utopia (270kms north-east of Alice Springs). The community embraced the technique and the project was a success.
In the Summer of 1988-1989 the medium of acrylic paint on canvas was introduced to the artists at Utopia by Rodney Gooch, working with the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) in Alice Springs. An exhibition entitled A Summer Project: Utopia Women’s Paintings: The First Works on Canvas consisting of one hundred small canvases of all the same size and using four basic colours, black white, yellow, ochre and red ochre was held in Sydney and immediately drew attention to the artistic talents of the Utopia artists.
The availability of acrylic paint and linen canvas enabled artists to produce works that were even more distinctive than the batiks. This new medium saw the rise of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye who paved the way in this more contemporary art form for artists like Gloria Petyarre, Kathleen Petyarre, Barbara Weir, Nancy Petyarre, Ada Bird and others.