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Gracie Pwerle Morton

"Bush Plum Dreaming" by Gracie Morton Pwerle

$4,995.00

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Size: 200 by 130  cm

Acrylic paint on canvas

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DOB: c. 1956 - 2024
BORN: Utopia, NT
LANGUAGE GROUP: Alyawarre
COMMUNITY: Utopia, NT

Gracie Pwerle Morton was born in Utopia, Northern Territory around 1956. She is one of the senior traditional custodians for both the Altyerre (Dreaming) and the vast expanse of a related country, some 263 km north of Alice Springs. In accordance with traditional law, the responsibility for the Bush Plum Dreaming has been passed down to Gracie from her father and her aunt, who are responsible for ensuring that she perseveres its traditions.


Gracie Pwerle Morton's career began in the 1970s with the Utopia Women's Batik Group and on canvas in the late 1980s. Her work has been well-received in galleries throughout Australia and around the world. Gracie works with great strength and dynamism of the Utopian women artists that continue across the generations. Gracie's delicate dotting and colour variation use an aerial perspective to portray the seasonal changes of the Arnwekety - the Bush Plum, a plant of great significance to the women of Gracie's traditional country, Mosquito Bore.

Gracie Morton's style of painting is distinctively minimalist and she uses a very delicate dotting technique and traditional colours. Her signature theme is the "bush plum" stories known to the Alyawarre as Arnwekety.
The delightfully subtle paintings of the Arnwekety - the Bush Plum, depict the changing seasonal influences on a plant that is of the greatest significance to the Alyawarre women of the Eastern Desert region of the Northern Territory. The incredible finesse of Gracie's style creates a wonderful lyricism in her works, causing a three-dimensionality that pulls at the eye guiding the viewer through the soft, outward-reaching fields of colour, while simultaneously transfixing one in its undulations.
The Bush Plum is a highly nutritious small fruit with black seeds, rich in vitamin C, that can be eaten raw or cooked. Growing in a great profusion of flowers and fruit throughout the winter months, the women, accompanied by the children, collect the Bush Plums, while at the same time reconfirming their connection to the land. The flourish of colour that distinguishes the Bush Plum after the fall of rain, is quickly transformed with the long hot summer months. Dried and separated, the seed and husk are scattered over the vast sun-baked landscape by the hot summer wind.

COLLECTIONS

  • Beher Collection, Reimers Foundation, Deidesheim, Germany
  • National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
  • Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
  • Artbank, Sydney
  • Holmes a Court Collection, Perth
  • Slaughter and May International Law, London


Selected Solo Exhibitions

  • 2002 Land is Life. Art from Australia, Jagdschloss Granitz, Binz, Ruegen, Germany
  • 2002 Kulturnacht, Aboriginal Art Galerie Baehr, Speyer, Germany
  • 2001-02 Recounting the Essence of Life. Art from Australia, Kunstforum HDZ, Bad Oeynhausen, Germany
  • 2001 The Unseen in Scene, Staedtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
  • 2001 Alliance Francaise de Canberra , Canberra
  • 2000 Mosquito Bore - The Art of the Minimalist, Ancient Earth Indigenous Art, Australia
  • 2000 Kunst der Aborigines, Leverkusen, Germany
  • 2000 Ancient Earth Indigenous Art, Cairns, Australia


Selected Group Exhibitions

  • 2020 60 by 60 - Small Paintings, Japingka Gallery, Perth
  • 2020 Cup of Joy - New Works from Rising Stars, Japingka Gallery, Perth
  • 2018 Painting on Country - Utopia Artists, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
  • 1999 Alliance Francaise de Canberra and French Embassy, Canberra
  • 1999 My Country - Journey of our Ancestors, Ancient Earth Indigenous Art, Cairns
  • 1999 Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs
  • 1999 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs
  • 1998 Utopia und Balgo Hills, Aboriginal Art Galerie Baehr, Speyer, Germany
  • 1998 Dreamings, Spazio Pitti Arte, Florence
  • 1998 Culture Store, Art Gallery, Rotterdam
  • 1996 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1994 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1993 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1992 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1991 8th National Aboriginal Art Awards, Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
  • 1991 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1989-91 Utopia: A Picture Story, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide
  • 1989 - 91 The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Ireland
  • 1989 - 91 Meat Market Gallery, Melbourne
  • 1989 Utopia Women's Paintings. The First Works on Canvas. A Summer Project, SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney
  • 1986 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs
  • 1985 Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for the Arts, Alice Springs

     

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