Jessie Petyarre Biography and CV
Born in 1957 at Macdonald Downs Station, Jessie is also known as Jessie Petyarre Hunter. She was a keen participant in the batik movement from 1977 to 1989, when she first asked the Holt family at nearby Delmore, for painting materials.
The Dreamings Jessie primarily represents in her works on linen are: the Yam, Wild Potato and wildflowers such as the Honey Grevillea from a sacred area called Enteebra. Enteebra is a sacred women's site on Utopia where Alyawarre women, Petyarre and Kngwarreye, gather to renew and perform their ceremonies. Jessie also paints awelye (women's ceremonial body painting).
Initially, Jessie was influenced by Lily Sandover Kngwarreye, who was her traditional teacher. Later she and her sisters Annie and Susie Petyarre, and her niece Genella Kngwarreye, developed their own style based on the flora of their sacred Country.
Jessie's brother, Sandy Hunter Petyarre, is also an artist and her mother, Molly Pwerle, is the sister of celebrated painter, Minnie Pwerle.
View Jessie Petyarre's paintings
COLLECTIONS
National Gallery of Australia, CanberraThe Holmes a Court Collection, Perth
The Art Gallery of New South Wales
Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
EXHIBITIONS
2018 Delmore Gallery: Utopia Women, Merricks Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia2016 Utopia Sisters - The Petyarre Women, Delmore Gallery with RedSea Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
2013 Landscape of our Dreaming, Red Poles, McLaren Vale
2012 Utopian art, Without Pier Gallery, Melbourne
2009 East-West, Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia
2009 Aboriginal art in Korea, Gong Pyeong Art Space, Seoul
2008 Power of Place, Tandanya Adelaide
2007 Standing on Ceremony, Tandanya Cultural Institute Adelaide
2005 Black Ink: Indigenous Prints from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
2005 Yam Dreaming - Atnwelarre, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs
2005 Small Wonders, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs
2003 Heart and Soul, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs
2002 Galerie Le Temps du Reve, France
2002 Hogarth Galleries, Sydney
2002 Glen Eira City Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Generations, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2001 Japingka Gallery, Perth
2001 Raintree Aboriginal Art Gallery, Darwin
2001 Painting Country, Tandanya, Adelaide
2000 DACOU (in association with AMP), Mary Place Gallery, Sydney
2000 Artists of Utopia, Tandanya, Adelaide
2000 Women’s Business, Australian Exhibition Centre, Chicago, USA
1999 BMG Art, Adelaide
1999 Caring for Country – Artists of Utopia, Tandanya, Adelaide
1998 Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney
1997 The Milky Way Dreaming, Rebecca Hossak, London
1997 Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
1997 DACOU Gallery, Adelaide
1996 Utopia Dreaming, Soho Gallery, Sydney
1990 Utopia: A Picture Story, 88 works on silk from The Holmes a Court Collection that toured Scotland and to Harvard University, USA
1988 Utopia Womens Paintings - the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney.
1985 The Second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
1989 A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne; Design Warehouse Sydney (through Lauraine Diggins Fine Art)