Ada Bird Petyarre emerged as a seminal participant in the ˜Summer Project’ organized by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association CAAMA in 1988. This workshop was to play a vital role in introducing women into what was, at the time, a male dominated activity.
She was born around on the old Utopia station at Atnangkere c. 1930. An Anmatyerr speaker, and now one of the senior women at Utopia she is best known for her renditions of Awelye for Arnkerrthe (women’s ceremonial body paint designs for the Mountain Devil Lizard), a Dreaming she shares with Kathleen Petyarre. Yet she also paints a variety of other Dreaming images including Bush Bean, Emu, Pencil Yam, and Grass Seed in common with Emily Kngwarreye, Gloria Petyarre and Violet Petyarre and a number of other painters of the region.
View Ada Bird Petyarre Top 200 artist insight.
