Born: c.1948. Boundary Bore Outstation, Utopia, Northern Territory
Language: Anmatyerre
Known as: Dolly Mills, Dolly Petyarre, Dolly Mills Pitjara
Dreamings: Women's Dreaming (Awelye), Yam Seed (Kame), Yam Flower, Emu Tucker, My Country (Alhalkere), Bush Tobacco
Dolly was born at Boundary Bore, an outstation in the Utopia homelands northeast of Alice Springs, and her country is Alhalkere. She comes from one of the most significant painting families in Central Australia. Her late brother Greeny Purvis Petyarre was the custodian of Alhalkere country, her sister Glory Mills Petyarre paints the same yam and bush tobacco stories, and Emily Kame Kngwarreye was her aunt. Her daughter Jeannie Mills Pwerle now carries the yam story forward in a style of her own.
Like most of the senior Utopia women, Dolly began in the batik sheds. Silk work made in the region through the 1970s and 1980s travelled far beyond the desert, and Dolly was one of the artists whose batiks were gathered into the Holmes à Court Collection and shown overseas. That body of work put the women of Utopia on the map. When the group moved onto canvas at the end of the 1980s, Dolly moved with them and has painted in acrylic ever since.
She works seated on the ground with the canvas flat in front of her, looking down on her country the way it is actually held in memory. This is why her paintings read from above. Fine dotting carries the seed and the flower, while looser linear passages track the root systems running out beneath the sand. The Alhalkere country she paints is old beyond measure, red and open and quietly full of food and water for those who know how to read it, and her paintings are a record of that knowledge held across many generations.
DREAMINGS
Yam Flower - the flowering stage of the pencil yam, and the colours that come through it as the seasons turn. After rain the vine spreads across open ground and puts out its flowers, and the women watch for them because the flower tells them where to dig.
Yam Seed (Kame) - the seed of the pencil yam, Atnwelarr, which belongs to Alhalkere. The seed is the beginning of the whole story and Dolly paints it as clustered dotting scattered across country.
My Country (Alhalkere) - the ancestral estate north east of Alice Springs that Dolly and her family hold. It is painted from above, its soakages, tracks and food grounds laid out across the canvas.
Women's Dreaming (Awelye) - the ceremonies women perform for country, and the ochre designs painted on the chest, arms and shoulders that go with them. Awelye keeps the country healthy and the food coming back each season.
Emu Tucker - the bush foods the emu feeds on across Alhalkere, and the seeds and fruits the women collect from the same ground.
Bush Tobacco - the native tobacco plant that grows in sheltered pockets of country, gathered and used by the old people.
EXHIBITIONS AND COLLECTIONS
Dolly's work has been shown nationally and internationally since the mid 1980s, including in the touring exhibitions that first brought Utopia art to European audiences.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1984 The First National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
1985 The Second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
1989 Utopia Women's Paintings, The First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project 1988-89, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
1990 Utopia, A Picture Story, 88 silk batiks from the Holmes à Court Collection, toured Ireland and Scotland
1992 Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Exhibition, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs
1998 Dreamings, Vlaams-Europeesch Conferentiecentrum, Brussels, Belgium
1998 Art Centre Meerzigt, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
1998 Museum Dorestad, Wijk bij Duurstede, The Netherlands
COLLECTIONS
Holmes à Court Collection, Perth
Private collections throughout Australia, Europe and the United States
Being an aerial depiction of the Yam Flower, this artwork can be hung vertically or horizontally.
This painting was purchased directly from Dolly and a gallery certificate of authenticity will be provided with the sale.
