D.O.B: 1957
LANGUAGE GROUP: Alyawarre/Anmatyarre
COMMUNITY: Utopia, NT
Jessie Petyarre Hunter is an emerging Aboriginal artist living and working in Utopia. Born in 1957, at MacDonald Downs, her country is Atnwengerrp and her language groups are Anmatyarre & Alyawarre. Her Dreamings are Alyawerre Country and Sugar Bag also known as Honey Ant Dreaming. She is the sister of renowned artists Sandy, Annie and Susan Hunter.
Jessie’s artistic heritage is impressive. Her mother is the Utopia artist, Molly Pwerle, one of the renowned Pwerle Sisters. Molly, Emily, Galya and the late Minnie Pwerle are celebrated and widely recognised for their innovative and beautiful, individual interpretations of Awelye (Women’s Ceremony).
Molly’s five children Sandy, Jessie, Susie, Annie and the late Christopher Hunter, are all artists living and working in Utopia. Jessie began painting on canvas in 1988 when acrylic painting was introduced to Utopia, prior to this she had been working in batik on silk. Jessie paints intricate designs consisting of many fine dots woven together that represent her country and her Dreaming, Sugar Bag.
Copyright to this biography belongs to Pwerle Gallery.
EXHIBITIONS:
2020 Pwerle Gallery x Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute ‘Atnwengerrp – Our Apmere, Our Place’ in celebration of Tandanya’s 30th year anniversary, Adelaide.
2018 Mercedes Me x Pwerle Gallery Art Exhibition at Mercedes Me Melbourne.
2018 Pwerle Gallery ‘Utopia exhibition of four generations’, Adelaide.
2009 Group exhibition, DACOU Broome, Broome, WA.
2009 ‘Utopia’, group exhibition, DACOU Melbourne, Middle Park, VIC.
2009 “Utopia, Color’s of the Desert”, Gongpyeong Art Space in conjunction with DACOU, Australian Embassy in Korea & Crossbay Gallery, Seoul, Korea.
2008 Utopia Discoveries Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
2008 EWB Elements traveling group exhibition to major cities in Australia.
2006-8 Permanent Collection, Dacou Gallery Adelaide.
2007 Standing on Ceremony, Tandanya Cultural Institute, Adelaide.
2007 ‘Desert Diversity’, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
2005 ‘Black Ink: Indigenous Prints from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
1990 Utopia – A Picture Story, an exhibition of 88 silk batiks from the Holmes a Court Collection by Utopia artists toured Ireland & Scotland.
1989 Utopia Women’s Paintings -the First Works on Canvas – A Summer Project, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney.
1989 Design Warehouse Sydney [through Lauraine Diggins Fine Art]
1989 A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne Design Warehouse. Sydney.
1985 ‘The Second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition’, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
