Born: c.1945-2008, Lake Nash (Alpurrurulam), Northern Territory
Language: Anmatyerre and Alyawarre
Known as: Margaret Turner, Margaret Price Petyarre, Margaret Turner Price
Dreamings: Awelye (Women's Ceremony and Body Paint), Bush Orange, Bush Medicine, Bush Tucker
Margaret Turner Petyarre was born around 1945 at Lake Nash, now known as Alpurrurulam, an Alyawarre community on the Northern Territory side of the Queensland border. She spent most of her life on the Utopia homelands north east of Alice Springs, living around Arlparra, and was part of the wider Petyarre family, whose women include some of the best known painters to come out of Utopia. Margaret passed away on 28 July 2008. Her daughter Marcia (Marcie) Turner Petyarre is also a respected artist and continues to paint the stories her mother passed on to her.
Like many Utopia women, Margaret started out in batik, drawing her designs in hot wax onto lengths of silk before dyeing them. She was one of the 88 artists whose silks make up Utopia: A Picture Story, a body of work completed in 1988 and bought in full by the Robert Holmes à Court Collection, which later toured to Scotland and Ireland. In the early 1990s she moved to acrylic on canvas, with support and guidance from senior painters in her Petyarre family.
Margaret painted with fine, careful dotting and long flowing lines. The curving bands in her awelye paintings come from the ceremonial designs painted across women's chests and shoulders, and her years in batik show in the way she handled those looping lines. Her bush food paintings are built up from dense fields of small dots. Her work is held in public and private collections in Australia and overseas.
DREAMINGS
Awelye (Women's Ceremony and Body Paint) – Awelye is the women's ceremony of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre. The women paint designs onto their chests and shoulders with ochre, then sing and dance for their country, for the plants and animals that sustain them, and for the health of the community. The lines in Margaret's paintings follow these body paint designs.
Bush Orange (Atwakeye) – The bush orange (Capparis mitchellii) is a small, hardy desert tree with dark leathery leaves, creamy white flowers that open at night, and round fruit with a sweet edible pulp. It was one of Margaret's own plant Dreamings and one of the subjects she returned to most often.
Bush Medicine – Women gather leaves from many different native plants across their country and prepare them in different ways depending on the ailment: boiled and drunk, crushed into a poultice, worked into a balm, or smoked. The knowledge of which plants to use and how to prepare them is passed down from grandmothers and mothers to daughters.
Bush Tucker – The foods women gather on country, including bush yam, yam seed and bush melon as well as the bush orange. Painting these foods keeps alive the knowledge of where they grow and when they are ready to harvest, handed down through generations of women.
EXHIBITIONS AND COLLECTIONS
Margaret exhibited in Australia and overseas, and her work was included in two landmark collections of Utopia and desert art.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1990 Utopia: A Picture Story, 88 silk batiks from the Robert Holmes à Court Collection, touring Scotland and Ireland
1996 Nangara, the Australian Aboriginal Art Exhibition from the Ebes Collection, Stichting Sint-Jan, Bruges, Belgium
2007 Group exhibition, China World Exhibition Centre, Beijing, China
2007 Group exhibition, International Art Expo, Beijing, China
COLLECTIONS
Robert Holmes à Court Collection, Perth
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Museums Victoria, Melbourne
Ebes Collection, Melbourne
In keeping with cultural protocol, we do not publish photographs of artists who have passed away. Margaret's name is used here so her work can be properly identified, out of respect for the old ways.
