Josie Petyarre was born at Ahalkere in Utopia. Some biographies give the year 1954. (The Australian Census lists a Josie Pitjara b.1959 to father Alec Ngwarai, Aranda, b.1925, mother Polly Ngale, Aranda b.1936. Siblings: Maisie, Sammy, Audrey, David.)
Petyarre was living at Alhalpere Store, Utopia, in 1987 when she was a batik artist contributing to the Utopia batik project and book (Utopia – A Picture Story). In 2008 she was living at the Utopia outstation of Pungalindum with her husband Dinni Kemarre and her adult children. Josie has painted and exhibited since the late 1980s after the CAAMA’s Summer Project Exhibition. Her past painting subjects were typically 'Women’s Ceremonial Body Paint’ but she also painted 'Yam Dreaming’ and 'Alhalkre Country’ (Leonard Joel, Oct. 2004, lot 396).
In 2005, Josie began making sculptures of animals, figures in ceremonial dress, cars and daily objects from Utopia, and was soon joined by Dinni, formerly a stockman. Dinni and Petyarre then worked collaboratively to produce wildly coloured painted wood sculptures of quirky objects incorporating contemporary themes. In 2006 they produced painted sculptures of Australian Rules footballers from each team and these were exhibited in 2007 at AFL World, Melbourne. Josie and Dinni attended the AFL World exhibition and the football grand final, leading Josie to produce realist paintings of Melbourne. In 2008, Josie and Dinni were joint finalists in the Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, with brightly painted sculptures of everyday objects such as tables and chairs and a police wagon.
- Writers:
- Brown, Stephen K.
- Date written:
- 2007
- Last updated:
- 2008
