Josie Petrick Kemarre was born at Santa Teresa Mission, c.1953. and by the time she had begun painting in 1990 she was living in the Eastern Desert region surrounding Utopia.

Based on the native plants of her homeland and her favorite bush tucker species at various stages of their growth, her paintings intimately associated with Women’s Awelye (ceremony/dancing) and Women’s Dreamings are rendered in two quite distinctively different styles. Her aerial depictions of bush tucker Dreamings featuring overlapping dot work entail only a semblance of Aboriginal iconography, while in her Women’s Dreaming’s each row of dots is rendered in a different colour with the inclusion of iconic womens symbols.

Read Josie Petrick Kemarre artist insight.