JEANNIE PITJARA PETYARRE - Bush Medicine Leaves

Jeannie comes from a large family of artists. Her sisters Rosemary Petyarre, Evelyn Pultara and Anna Price Petyarre are all well-known artists, as is her brother Greeny Purvis Petyarre. She is first cousin to the famous Petyarre sisters Gloria, Nancy, Myrtle, Kathleen, Violet, Ada and Jean Petyarre, and niece to the celebrated Utopian artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye.

Jeannie's paintings move between several Dreamings tied to her family and Country. Her Bush Medicine Leaves and Bush Yam works both follow plants gathered by the women of Utopia medicine leaves for healing, and the bush yam as a longstanding food source, its seed, leaf and flower rendered in colours that shift with the seasons. The bush yam in particular has grown harder to find since the introduction of livestock and other changes to the land, lending these paintings extra weight as a record of something increasingly scarce. Alongside these, Jeannie painted Awelye the ceremonial body paint designs of the women's ceremonies as well as her own Country, Alhalkere in the Boundary Bore region of Utopia, and the Mountain Devil Lizard (Arnkerrthe) Dreaming shared across the Petyarre sisters, each bringing her own interpretation to the same ancestral story.

Jeannie took up batik in the early 1980s, working alongside the other Utopia women before moving into acrylic on canvas later that decade. Her work is known for its sense of movement, with layered brushwork that captures leaves and seeds shifting and overlapping as if caught mid-breeze.

Over her career Jeannie's work travelled well beyond Central Australia shown in group exhibitions across Europe, the Middle East and the United States, including showings in Paris, Milan, Istanbul, Dubai and Houston, as well as the 2002 Seven Sisters Petyarre exhibition at Brisbane City Gallery. Her paintings are held in major public collections including the National Gallery of Australia and the Holmes à Court Collection in Perth.

Sadly, Jeannie passed away on the 27th of December 2022.

This painting was purchased directly from Jeannie, and a gallery certificate of authenticity will be provided with the sale.