GLADDY KEMARRE

Gladdy Kemarre was born around 1950 at Mount Swan, in her father’s Country in Central Australia. She is the daughter of Clara Kngwarreye and Kwementyay Pwerle, and grew up in the Harts Range region alongside her sister Ally Kemarre and brother Billy Benn Perrule — all three of whom would go on to become acclaimed artists. Raised within Anmatyerre cultural traditions, the siblings learned to paint through ceremonial body designs, while their father, a skilled carver, taught them to make traditional objects such as boomerangs and spears.Gladdy began her artistic career in the late 1970s as a member of the pioneering Utopia Women’s Batik Group. Her practice later transitioned to acrylic painting, where she developed a distinctive style centred on the Bush Plum Dreaming — a story that honours the seasonal flowering and fruiting of native desert plants vital to both survival and ceremony. These works are not just visual; they extend the language of ceremonial song, dance, and deep spiritual connection to land.Her Awelye paintings reflect women’s body painting traditions and ancestral designs passed down through generations. These works communicate complex knowledge systems relating to identity, kinship, and women’s ceremonial responsibilities in Anmatyerre society.Gladdy Kemarre played a key role in two landmark exhibitions that introduced Utopia art to the wider world: A Picture Story (1988) and A Summer Project (1989). She has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and Europe, and her work is held in major collections including The National Gallery of Australia, Aboriginal Art Museum in the Netherlands, The National Gallery of Victoria and Flinders University Collection. In 2009, she was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and went on to win first prize in both the Mount Buller Art Awards and the City of Swan Art Awards. Her continued recognition includes finalist placements in The King’s School Art Prize, The Stanthorpe Art Prize, The Albany Art Prize, The Fletcher Jones Painting Prize, The Waterhouse Natural History Prize, and The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize.

Motorbike Paddy, Emily Kam Kngwarray and the Wonders of Utopia

9 July - 30 August 2025

For thirty-seven years, the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery has been a leading champion of Aboriginal art in the UK. In 1996, the gallery gave Emily Kam Kngwarray her first solo exhibition outside Australia — at a time when few in the British art establishment recognised the significance of Aboriginal art....

Family: Artists From Utopia

8 July - 31 August 2024

London

The Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery presents Family: Artists from Utopia. In advance of the forthcoming retrospective of the pioneering Aboriginal artist, Emily Kam Kngwarrey, this historic survey exhibition brings together a collection of previously unseen works produced over the past three decades by artists from the remote Central Desert community...

Motorbike Paddy, Emily Kam Kngwarray and the Wonders of Utopia

Family: Artists From Utopia

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