"Women's Ceremony" by Bernadine Johnson Kemarre

SIZE: 106 X 96 CM

MEDIUM: ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

COMMISSION WORK AVAILABLE

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Bernadine Kemarre is a rising star in contemporary Aboriginal art. She was born in 1974 in the Ltyentye Apurte Community (Santa Teresa), approximately 80km east of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, and had a traditional upbringing before attending school in Alice Springs.

Bernadine comes from a family of famous artists, including Abie Loy and Josie Petrick Kemarre, who have emerged from the Utopia area in the NT. Her sister-in-law is Anna Price Petyarre, one of Central Desert artists most sought-after. From a young age, she learned the art of painting her dreamings, ceremonies, and important bush foods onto canvas.

Bernadine currently lives with her husband, Steven, and their children in Napperby Station, NT. Her artworks are intricate and colorful and she is an artist sure to succeed.

ARTWORK STORY

Bernadine's artwork depicts motifs that give symbolic form to tribal women engaged in cultural activities in a desert environment known as Yuelamu, which the women inherited from their Ancestral Grandmother, who travelled to this Anmatyerre site in the Tanami Desert during the Dreamtime at Creation.

Represented as symbolic U-shapes, the women are shown in different areas collecting wild-growing bush food, which is given form through star-like shapes that represent berry bushes. At the same time, clusters of pool-encased small dots and large dots serve to represent various types of berries and bush plums that the women collect.