Bernadine Kemarre Arrernte, b. 1974

Bernadine Johnson Kemarre is an Arrernte woman born in 1974 at Santa Teresa, NT. She moved to the Eastern Desert community of Utopia to marry Stephen Price Pitjarra the brother of well known artist Anna Price Petyarre.  She, her husband and two children now live in Adelaide. In her art Bernadine follows the great tradition of many of Utopia’s famous women artists such as Gloria Petyarre whose paintings are of bush medicine leaves, bush tucker and other plants of her lands. The style of her bush medicine leaves paintings is highly detailed and she is a skilled colourist, blending many shades of similar or complementary colours together with great skill. Bush Medicine Leaves are collected by the women and are used in a variety of different ways. They can be boiled in water and the liquid used as a drinking medicine. This medicine can ease stomach ache. The Leaves can also be crushed and mixed with Kangaroo Fat to create a salve that is applied to burns. As a bush woman, Bernadine is familiar with her land and its abundance of bush tucker species, medicine plants and native fauna. These are the stories inherited by her, along with important women’s stories, and which form the basis of her paintings. Since she started painting in the late 1990s, Bernadine’s work has become more refined and is eagerly sought after by collectors and art enthusiasts throughout Australia and internationally