Angelina Ngal Pwerle

Angelina Ngal Pwerle was born in 1947 to Nellie Petyarre in the arid desert country of Utopia Station, Central Australia. She is now widely recognised as one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal artists, with her work held in major public and private collections both nationally and internationally, including Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Australia and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Angelina began her artistic journey in the late 1970s with batik, as part of the pioneering Utopia Women’s Batik Group. Like many artists from the region, she transitioned to acrylic painting in the late 1980s, embracing the medium to explore and express her cultural inheritance with great depth and refinement.

A custodian of Anmatyerr cultural knowledge, Angelina belongs to the extended artistic family that includes celebrated figures such as Emily Kam Kngwarray, with whom she shares kinship and ceremonial traditions. These deep connections are reflected in her intricate dot paintings, which convey a powerful sense of Country, ceremony, and ancestral presence.