Skin:  

Language Group: Alyawarr

Region: Atnwengerrp, central Australia, Northern Territory

Dreaming: Awelye Atnwengerrp - Women's Ceremony

Emily Pwerle (born circa: 1930s) lives a traditional lifestyle with her extended family on Atnwengerrp, Utopia region in central Australia. 

With her sisters Minnie Molly and Gayla (all deceased), Emily began painting in earnest in the early 2000s when her niece Barbara Weir organised a workshop for the four Pwerle sisters at Irrultja outstation which continued on, with a major workshop run every six weeks. During the workshops all Pwerle sisters artists would work on collaborative canvases as well as their own individual canvas. Sister, Minnie played an important role in teaching her sister’s artistic development.

Much like her older sister Minnie, Emily paints ‘Awelye Atnwengerrp’ meaning ‘women’s business’. In preparation for ceremonies the women paint their upper torsos with red, yellow and white ochres in designs signifying iconography in traditional hatched patterns. Inspired by these designs, Emily uses energetic and vibrantly coloured overlapping lines which engulf the canvas. The depth and linear complexity of Emily's paintings have their origins in the separate dreaming symbols which she brings together on each of her canvasses. Emily often paints three dreamings at once, overlapping the symbols for each one until a web of lines and shapes is formed.

She has developed her own unique, contemporary style and is regarded as a prolific, energetic and talented artist, often compared to her late sister Minnie. She remains an active painter into her later years.

Her paintings have been exhibited around Australia and in international galleries. 

2005 — Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT

2006 — The Pwerle Sisters, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

2006 — The Pwerle Sisters, Artmob Gallery, Hobart, TAS

2006 — APS Bendi Lango Art Exhibition with Rio Tinto, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

2007 — Utopia in New York, Robert Steele Gallery, New York City, USA

2007 — Desert Diversity, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

2007 — Gallery Savah, Sydney, NSW

2007 — Treasures of the Spirit – Investing in Aboriginal Art, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA

2007 — Utopia Collection, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA

2008 — EWB Elements, group travelling exhibition to major Australian cities (presented by DACOU with Dreamtime Art and Engineers Without Borders)

2008 — Walking Together to Aid Aboriginal Health – Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, University of NSW, Kensington, NSW

2008 — Women's Stories, Alison Kelly Gallery, Richmond, VIC

2009 — Utopia – Colours of the Desert, GongpyeongArt Space (with DACOU, Australian Embassy in Korea, Crossbay Gallery), Seoul, South Korea

2009 — Gallery Savah, Sydney, NSW

2010 — The Pwerle Sisters, group exhibition, DACOU, Melbourne, VIC

2020 — Atnwengerrp – Our Apmere, Our Place, with Pwerle Gallery at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA

2021 — We Choose to Challenge, Coo-ee Fine Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW

Skin:  

Language Group: Alyawarr

Region: Atnwengerrp, central Australia, Northern Territory

Dreaming: Awelye Atnwengerrp - Women's Ceremony

Born in 1939, Gayla Pwerle, the youngest of the Pwerleartists, lived a traditional lifestyle with her family on Atnwengerrp, in the Utopia region of central Australia.

The Pwerle sisters – Molly, Emily and Gayla – and their three daughters Annie, Susan and Jessie Pitjara Hunter produced a vast body of work celebrating their beliefs and stories associated with ceremonies. Their paintings interpreted Awelye (women's laws/business) and all it symbolised during the spiritual women's ceremonies. The Pwerle women produced vibrant works honouring their bush foods, in particular the desert raisin and wild orange, while the daughters celebrated the red-bud mallee tree and the honey grevillea and the sustenance it had provided to the Alyawarr people for generations. These works of art were also representations of body and ceremonial adornments.

The women's paintings had been collected since the beginning of the Utopia art movement, when batik was first introduced in 1977. Some of their batiks were selected for Utopia – A Picture Story, an exhibition from the Holmes à Court Collection which toured extensively nationally and overseas. Their paintings were also featured in the exhibition "Utopia Women's Paintings, the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project" (1988–89). Over the following 40 years they participated in many exhibitions throughout Australia, Europe and the UK.

The Pwerle women produced vibrant works honouring their bush foods, in particular the desert raisin and wild orange, while the daughters celebrated the red-bud mallee tree and the honey grevillea and the sustenance it had provided to the Alyawarr people for generations. These works of art were also representations of body and ceremonial adornments.

The summer-time women's ceremonies were focal points in the life of the community and were integral to the happiness and well-being of the people. They gathered and sang and danced led by the most senior women of the clan group. It was at these ceremonial gatherings that the women, especially the younger ones, were taught the tribal dreamings or rules of life by the senior women.

Gayla Pwerle's paintings have been exhibited throughout Australia and in international galleries. She was nominated for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2005 and 2008.

2005 — The Pwerle Sisters, Artmob Gallery, Hobart, TAS

2005 — Dacou Australia, Rosewater, SA

2005 — Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT

2005 — Gallery Savah, Sydney, NSW

2006 — Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

2006 — APS Bendi Lango Art Exhibition, Rio Tinto Offices, Melbourne, VIC

2006/2007 — New Works from Utopia, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

2007 — Contemporary Australian Art, VIC

2007 — Desert Diversity, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

2007 — Annual Group Exhibition "Shalom," University of NSW, Shalom Department, Kensington, NSW

2007 — Utopia in New York, Robert Steele Gallery, New York, USA

2007 — Standing on Ceremony, Tandanya Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA

2007 — Dacou Adelaide, Port Adelaide, SA

2007 — Australian Embassy, Washington, DC, USA

2007 — Treasures of the Spirit – Investing in Aboriginal Art, Tandanya Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA

2007 — APS Bendi Lango Art Exhibition with Rio Tinto, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

2008 — Walking Together to Aid Aboriginal Health – Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, University of NSW, Kensington, NSW

2009 — Utopia – Colours of the Desert, GongpyeongArt Space (with DACOU, Australian Embassy in Korea, Crossbay Gallery), Seoul, South Korea