Utopia: a homage

The late Anmatyerre artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996) is increasingly described as Australia's most significant artist. Her enduring theme was her ancestral Country of Alhalkere, located in the Utopia region, 230k north-east of Mpwarnte (Alice Springs). Kngwarreye has been the subject of several major public gallery retrospectives, holds the record for the highest priced work at auction by an Australian woman artist, has represented Australia at the Venice Biennale and was a groundbreaking painter of expressive colour, women's ceremonial traditions and culture. 
Remembered fondly in her community as 'Aunty Emily', Kngwarreye's legacy lives on in the work of women artists of Utopia: her grandnieces Janet Golder Kngwarreye and Belinda Golder Kngwarreye; her close friend and carer Barbara Weir and Weir's daughter Charmaine Pwerle who had grown up with Kngwarreye. The refined monochrome works by Lizzie Moss Pwerle reference the white ochre used for body paint in women's ceremonies as with Kngwarreye's famous black and white body paint series.

CURATORS IN CONVERSATION & EXHIBITION OPENING
Everywhen's curators, art writers, authors and gallerists Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs witnessed Kngwarreye's painting life more than 30 years ago. Susan wrote many feature, news articles and reviews on her art and life for the national press, and Emily worked with and wrote on Kngwarreye's art in her part time job in a leading Melbourne gallery. Both have charted, from a first hand perspective, the subsequent evolution of the Utopia painting movement. Susan and Emily will discuss Kngwarreye's rise as an artist, her incredible legacy and the work of the exhibiting artists following in her steps.

EXHIBITION OPENING AND IN CONVERSATION
Saturday November 7 at 2.30 pm
RSVP opening event info@everywhenart.com.au