MARCIE TURNER PETYARRE - Awelye (Body Paint)

DOB: 1969. Utopia, Northern Territory
Known as: Marcia Turner Petyarre, Marcie Turner Pula
Language: Anmatyerre / Alyawarre
Dreamings: Bush Medicine, Women's Dreaming and Body Paint (Awelye)

Marcie was born in Utopia, north east of Alice Springs, into one of Central Australia's great painting families. Her mother was the late Margaret Turner Petyarre, a senior and much respected artist, and it was through her that Marcie learned her country, her stories and the way to carry them onto canvas. She also came up around other celebrated Utopia women, among them Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre, and that lineage shows in the confidence of her hand.

Dreamings

Awelye (Body Paint) - the designs Anmatyerre women paint onto the upper body, breasts and shoulders for ceremony. Ochre is ground with water and applied by hand, and the ceremony carries song and dance handed down through generations of women. The designs are not chosen freely. Each belongs to a particular ceremony, to country and to the women entitled to paint it.

Women's Dreaming - the ceremonies, songs and country held by the women of Utopia and passed from mother to daughter. Awelye sits inside this wider body of women's business, alongside the gathering of bush foods and medicines and the caring for the sites those stories belong to.

Bush Medicine - the leaves and plants used across the Utopia region to treat all manner of ailments. They come from many different native species rather than one plant, and the women prepare them in several ways. Leaves are boiled and the liquid drunk, worked into a poultice and laid on the body, mixed into a balm, or burned so the smoke can be inhaled.

Awelye is painted by many women across Utopia, in all sorts of ways, but Marcie's hand is her own. She works in bold, flowing line, rhythmic and almost hypnotic to follow across the canvas, a style you will not find in anyone else painting this subject. The result holds real ceremonial weight and still reads as strikingly contemporary on a wall, which is why her work is sought after by collectors..

Marcie is married with seven children. Two of her daughters, Rosabella and Sacha Long, have become painters in their own right.

This painting was purchased directly from Marcie and comes with our gallery certificate of authenticity.