Rosemary Petyarre

DOB: 1961
BORN: Utopia, NT
LANGUAGE GROUP: Anmatyerre
COMMUNITY: Utopia, NT

Rosemary Petyarre was born in c.1961  on the Boundary Bore Outstation of Utopia in the Northern Territory, located 270 km northeast of Alice Springs.

One of a group of Anmatyerre women at the forefront of the art movement in the Utopia area she was amongst a group of women from Utopia who travelled to Indonesia to learn different techniques for producing batik. Following the Holmes a Court Summer Project, sponsored by CAAMA in 1988-89, she commenced painting with acrylic on canvas.

As a bush woman, Rosemary Petyarre is familiar with her land and its abundant species of bush tucker, medicinal plants and native fauna. She inherited these stories, along with important women’s stories, from her ancestors via her aunt Emily and they form the basis of her paintings. The subject of many of Rosemary Petyarre’s paintings is a representation of leaves collected around her country and used for a variety of medicinal purposes. In particular, she returns again and again to Bush Yam Leaves and Bush Medicine, depicting these themes with flowing representations of the leaves. Typical of the Utopia artists, Rosemary Petyarre rejoices in the use of colour.

Rosemary Petyarre is the sister of famous Aboriginal artist Greenie Purvis Petyarre.