Lulu Pitjara Teece

DOB: 1953
BORN: Alice Springs, NT
LANGUAGE GROUP: Alyawarre
COMMUNITY: Ampilatwatja

Lulu Pitjara Teece was born c. 1953 and has four siblings, including the late accomplished artist Margaret Turner Petyarre. Lulu was part of the Utopian Batik art movement of the 1980s, and her batiks shared the story of the Kurrajong Seed Dreaming. The Utopian Batik project toured nationally and internationally, and the entire collection was later acquired by the Robert Holmes Court Foundation.

Like many artists from the Ampilatwatja community, Lulu paints Arreth which translates to ‘strong bush medicine’. Artists from this region are known for painting the features of their country in microscopic detail, as the land has always provided and sustained the Alyawarr people, and every plant and animal has a vital role to play within the ecological system. The artists pay homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, however, the Ampilatwatja community have chosen not to paint the ‘Altyerr’ Dreaming stories. Rather, the artists have chosen to paint the country in which these Dreaming stories and the ancestors inhabit.

Lulu’s artworks capture the vastness of her country, with its rich red desert earth and clear blue sky in the horizon. When Lulu is not painting, she enjoys hunting, searching for sugar bag and digging Yerramp (honey ant).