ALICE SPRINGS - MELBOURNE - SYDNEY
87 TODD MALL ALICE SPRINGS 0870 AUSTRALIA
All content of this site is copyright © 2008 and may not be reproduced without
express permission of Aboriginal Desert Art Gallery Pty Ltd.
GRACIE NGALA MORTON
Gracie Ngala ( Purle )Morton was born near Utopia c.1956, Gracie is of the Eastern Amatyerre group and her country is Alhalkere.
She is the daughter of traditional artist Myrtle Petyarre. Utopia is a community approximately 230 km northeast of Alice Springs, NT. She has always lived a traditional lifestyle, spending her early years collecting bush foods and living off the land. This was the way of life for central desert families throughout the generations. Her education involved living and surviving in a desert environment just as her mother had done and her mother's mother before that.
Gracie gained recognition as an artist working in the medium of batik, exhibiting her work with the Utopia women in Australia and overseas. Funded under government arts programs and with the support of CAAMA 88, the Utopia women created a major work entitled "A picture story". This was later acquired by the Holms a Court collection and exhibited at Tandanya in Adelaide in 1989.
In 1988 Gracie and the Utopia Artists started painting on canvas and using acrylic paints. She prefers the greater freedom and control through the medium of acrylic paints on canvas. Her earlier works are quite typical of "Utopia Art" Much line work depicting body-paint designs, and many traditional symbols are seen in her central desert dot paintings.
The transition to canvas allowed for the progressive development of her skills as a painter. Open to outside influence, Gracie’s style evolved into the highly detailed spectre as it presently appears. This involved the interplay of past skills, medium and technique, giving a finite depiction to her present examples.
The avid collector sees and notes the rigorous high quality standard of work she sets for herself. The end result to this mastery is a transmutation of visual feeling onto canvas making her paintings appear as if they were three-dimensional.
Gracie specialises in painting the Bush Plum. Currently, Gracie resides on her traditional land at Mosquito Bore with her husband and two children.
Gracie’s work has been exhibited throughout Australia and in many places around the world, particularly in Western Europe and in North America.
Gracie has been painting for the Aboriginal Desert Art Gallery, Alice Springs – Sydney – Melbourne since 1994.
WOMEN'S DREAMING
( CEREMONY )
This painting tells of women's business, an initiation ceremony for women.
The women depicted here (by stylised horseshoe motif) may be past initiates, or young women awaiting instruction from older women. Initiates are taught their roles as nurturers of the land and keepers of the law by which life's rules and regulations are set.
This particular ceremonial site is near Utopia.
Ceremonies always involve song, dance and body decoration, The ownership, management and performance is dependent upon knowledge and status.
In this painting Gracie show's us a women's ceremonial site near Utopia, were women painting their bodies with markings in preparation for the ceremony.
Bodypainting carries deep spiritual significance for the Aboriginal people. They recognise the creative nature of this activity, which uses the human body itself as a living canvas for artistic expression.
The use of particular designs and motifs denotes social position and the relationship of the individuals to their family group and to particular ancestors, totemic animals and tracts of land. In many situations individuals are completely transformed so they 'become' the spirit ancestor they are portraying in the dance.
Patterns must conform to the ceremony being performed, and the women are not at liberty to adorn themselves with designs of free will. Elaborate ground constructions (sand paintings) are also made.
Usually during ceremonies, their bodypainting depicts similar linear designs as those illustrated in the ground paintings.
Ochres and Spinifex ashes are mixed with Kangaroo or Emu fat to make the body paint. Bodypainting ranges from simply smearing clay across the face, to intrinsic full body patterning.
Owing however to the secret and sacred nature of the ceremonies involved no further interpretation is possible.