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Minnie Pwerle 1909 - 2005
Vertegenwoordigd door:
SmithDavidson Gallery
Minnie was born around 1910 near the cattle station of Utopia in Northern Territory. She belongs to the Anmatyerre and Alyawarr language groups.
When Minnie was a teenager, she gave birth to her first daughter Barbara Weir. Barbara is now a well-known Aboriginal artist nationally and internationally. Minnie was later married to ‘Motorcar’ Jim, and together they had six children.
Like many other highly respected Utopia women artists, Minnie participated in the batik project which was introduced to the community in 1977. Painting on canvas in the community started in the late 1980s. In 1999, after many years of ceremonial body painting, Minnie started to paint on canvas. Presented with canvases, she began to paint a series of linear works. The finished pieces were bold, vibrant and free flowing. They quickly captured the attention of prominent gallery owners who purchased every canvas Minnie painted. This informal and completely unexpected workshop heralded Minnie’s entrance into mainstream Aboriginal art.
Together with her good friend Emily Kam Kngwarray Minnie revolutionised Aboriginal Art by painting in a radically different manner than their fellow artists from the Western Desert. This different manner became extremely successful in the market place with a Western audience due to its colourful and abstract appearance. With exhilarating colours and dynamic gestures, Minnie painted two main design themes: ‘Bush Melon’ or ‘Bush Melon Seed’ which depicted her Dreamings, and ‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’. She was a custodian for her country and her stunning artwork pays homage to her Dreamings, country and ancestors. She draws on an ancient cultural tradition that has used visual gestures and pigments in body painting, rock art and sand painting to express connection to country for thousands of years. Minnie’s canvases sing with indigenous wisdom and contemporary verve.
‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’ represents the ochre designs painted on the top half of women’s bodies for awelye, traditional women’s ceremonies. On canvas, as in ceremony, Minnie painted mesmerising lines and circles; her U-shapes depict women’s painted breasts. The lively rhythms celebrate and capture the energy and movements of women dancing and singing around open fires in the soft red sand of the desert. The iconographic interplay between body painting circles and small round bush melons is clearly evident in Minnie’s vibrant paintings of ‘Bush Melon’ and ‘Bush Melon Seed’. They tell the story of this lovely sweet food that comes from a very small bush only found in Atnwengerrp.
Minnie continued to paint until she died in March 2006. Her paintings are held in many overseas institutional and private collections as well as the major art galleries in Australia.
When Minnie was a teenager, she gave birth to her first daughter Barbara Weir. Barbara is now a well-known Aboriginal artist nationally and internationally. Minnie was later married to ‘Motorcar’ Jim, and together they had six children.
Like many other highly respected Utopia women artists, Minnie participated in the batik project which was introduced to the community in 1977. Painting on canvas in the community started in the late 1980s. In 1999, after many years of ceremonial body painting, Minnie started to paint on canvas. Presented with canvases, she began to paint a series of linear works. The finished pieces were bold, vibrant and free flowing. They quickly captured the attention of prominent gallery owners who purchased every canvas Minnie painted. This informal and completely unexpected workshop heralded Minnie’s entrance into mainstream Aboriginal art.
Together with her good friend Emily Kam Kngwarray Minnie revolutionised Aboriginal Art by painting in a radically different manner than their fellow artists from the Western Desert. This different manner became extremely successful in the market place with a Western audience due to its colourful and abstract appearance. With exhilarating colours and dynamic gestures, Minnie painted two main design themes: ‘Bush Melon’ or ‘Bush Melon Seed’ which depicted her Dreamings, and ‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’. She was a custodian for her country and her stunning artwork pays homage to her Dreamings, country and ancestors. She draws on an ancient cultural tradition that has used visual gestures and pigments in body painting, rock art and sand painting to express connection to country for thousands of years. Minnie’s canvases sing with indigenous wisdom and contemporary verve.
‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’ represents the ochre designs painted on the top half of women’s bodies for awelye, traditional women’s ceremonies. On canvas, as in ceremony, Minnie painted mesmerising lines and circles; her U-shapes depict women’s painted breasts. The lively rhythms celebrate and capture the energy and movements of women dancing and singing around open fires in the soft red sand of the desert. The iconographic interplay between body painting circles and small round bush melons is clearly evident in Minnie’s vibrant paintings of ‘Bush Melon’ and ‘Bush Melon Seed’. They tell the story of this lovely sweet food that comes from a very small bush only found in Atnwengerrp.
Minnie continued to paint until she died in March 2006. Her paintings are held in many overseas institutional and private collections as well as the major art galleries in Australia.
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Minnie Pwerle working on a painting
Tentoonstellingen
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Selected Exhibitions
2019 - Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2016 - ‘Utopia; Abstract Expressionism from the Desert’, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2013 - ‘Searching for Utopia’ – Barbara Weir, Minnie Pwerle
2012 - Art & Interior – Modern Aboriginal Art at Wolterinck Laren, The Netherlands
2012 - Modern Aboriginal Masters – Contemporary Aboriginal Art
2012 - Desert Dreamings – Contemporary Aboriginal Art
2009 - Indigenous Australian Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
2005 - National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award
2000 - Solo exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Selected Collections
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Queensland National Gallery, Queensland, Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Kelton Foundation, California, United States
Thomas Vroom Collection, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Corrigan Collection, London, United Kingdom
2019 - Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2016 - ‘Utopia; Abstract Expressionism from the Desert’, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2013 - ‘Searching for Utopia’ – Barbara Weir, Minnie Pwerle
2012 - Art & Interior – Modern Aboriginal Art at Wolterinck Laren, The Netherlands
2012 - Modern Aboriginal Masters – Contemporary Aboriginal Art
2012 - Desert Dreamings – Contemporary Aboriginal Art
2009 - Indigenous Australian Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
2005 - National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award
2000 - Solo exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Selected Collections
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Queensland National Gallery, Queensland, Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Kelton Foundation, California, United States
Thomas Vroom Collection, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Corrigan Collection, London, United Kingdom
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