Janet Goldner Kngwarreye
About Janet
Janet Golder Kngwarreye, the daughter of Margaret Golder and Sammy Pitjara, is an Anmatyerre artist from Mulga Bore in the Utopia Homelands. She lives at Boundary Bore with her husband, Ronnie Bird, and their three children. Janet has been actively involved in the Batik movement at Utopia in the Northern Territory, focusing on painting stories about her ancestral land.
Her family's artistic heritage is strong. Her grandmothers, Polly Ngale and Angelina Pwerle, are highly regarded Utopia artists, and her uncle, Greeny Purvis, also contributes to this legacy. Janet's sister, Belinda Golder Kngwarreye, is a talented artist in her own right.
Janet started painting in 1987, learning from family members and drawing inspiration from the themes that resonate within her family's art group. These themes include the Awelye Women’s Ceremonial Body Paint, Bush Yam Leaf designs, Bush Medicine, and Mountain Devil Dreaming. In recent years, Janet has developed narratives centred on women’s cultural practices on Country, combining imagery of bush foods with elements of the Utopia landscape.
Janet is skilled in applying color to her art. Her works often blend black and white design elements with vibrant colours or display a full spectrum of color, showcasing features of her homeland and the bush medicine that thrives there. She has exhibited her work in galleries across Australia and internationally.
About the Painting
Janet's paintings are rooted in traditional knowledge, and her confident approach to painting is clear in the way she assembles images of bush seeds, layering dots to create a dense surface with a rich palette of colours. Gracie’s subject matter stems from acute observation and memory, blending intimate knowledge of the country with personal history and ancestral journey.
The Bush Plum Dreaming Story is a significant narrative spanning the western and central deserts, from Lajamanu and Warlpiri country to the Utopia homelands.
The Bush Plum Dreaming or Creation Story from the Utopia region unfolds as follows: In the Dreamtime, winds blew from all directions, carrying the bush plum seed to the artists’ ancestral lands. The first bush plum of the Dreamings grew, bore fruit, and dropped more seeds, with many winds dispersing the seeds across the Dreaming lands.
To ensure the plant's continued fruiting, Aboriginal people pay homage to the bush plum's spirit by painting about it and recreating it in ceremonies through song and dance. The patterns in the paintings celebrating the Bush Plum work on multiple levels, representing the plant's fruit, leaves, flowers, and body paint designs associated with it during ceremony.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
2020, one of Janet's works was chosen to decorate the Coles supermarket in Alice Springs
