KATHLEEN PETYARRE - MOUNTAIN DEVIL LIZARD - SANDHILL COUNTRY (AFTER HAILSTORM)
KATHLEEN PETYARRE
MOUNTAIN DEVIL LIZARD - SANDHILL COUNTRY (AFTER HAILSTORM), 2001
137.5 x 137 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen
REGION
Utopia, NT
PROVENANCE
Gallerie Australis, SA, Cat No. GAKP0801308
Alcaston Gallery, Vic, Cat No. AK7486
Dr Terry Cutler, Vic
Fireworks Gallery, Qld, Cat No. FW17599
Private Collection, Qld
Cooee Art Leven, NSW
STORYKatheen Petyarre is best known for her finely wrought, intimate renditions of the vast landscapes in the Eastern Desert. These were created during the epic journeys of her Dreaming ancestor and totem, the tiny Thorny Devil Lizard, referred to as ‘that Old Woman Mountain Devil’.
This tiny desert creature is believed to have created the vast desert home of the Eastern Anmatyerre people by moving the sand, grain by grain, since the dawn of time. Petyarre and her clanswomen believed that they are its descendants, and have therefore inherited the responsibility for caring and nurturing the vast landscape that she depicted so intimately and carefully in her paintings.
Petyarre's process leading to these sumptuous paintings took years to perfect. In this painting she presents an aerial view composition of her sacred Dreaming site (home of the Mountain Devil Lizard) in the vicinity of Mosquito Bore on Utopia Station. It is here at this site that the men and women of the eastern Anmatyerre language conduct important secret and sacred initiation ceremonies. This Dreaming site is situated in the artist’s father’s country and the general locality is identified by a group of sandhills. The painting portrays the area scattered with seeds, summer bush flowers and Spinifex grasses. The sand-hills conceal a sacred Women’s Dreaming site associated with the green pea (antweth).
EXHIBITED
ARCO (Arte Contemporaneo), International Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid, Spain, 2002
ARTIST PROFILE
