Angelina Ngal Pwerle

Angelina Ngal Pwerle is the sister of fellow Utopia artists Kathleen Ngal and Polly Ngal. For the earlier part of her career she was known as Angelina Pwerle, from her married name to artist Louis Pwerle. Angelina was born in 1947 at Utopia. Later during the mid 1970s as the traditional owners at Utopia were preparing to receive freehold title to their traditional lands, the women participated in a batik arts project aimed at creating commercial income for the people on the land. Angelina Ngal and her sisters were involved with the large group of Utopia women in the batik project, which later merged into the first painting project in 1989. This was exhibited in Sydney as ‘The First works on Canvas: A Summer Project’ and led to the great acrylic on canvas paintings subsequently made on the Utopia homelands.

Angelina Pwerle established her finely worked paintings during the 1990s, creating a beautiful sense of abstract contemporary work fused with indigenous sense of the spiritual values of the land. Angelina’s subject remained the Bush Plum Ahakeye Dreaming stories from her grandfather’s country, referring to the land and the traditional ceremonies associated with the Dreaming stories.

Angelina Ngal has exhibited consistently since 1989 and her work is held in major public and private collections. Angelina was a finalist in the Wynne Prize for Landscape at the Art Gallery of NSW and in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art Awards. Angelina exhibited in Sandover River Stories at Japingka Gallery in 2012 and her work continues to inspire collectors with its ethereal sense of the land and its metaphysical content.

Links

Polly Ngale

Galya Pwerle

Solo Exhibitions

• 1996          Niagara Galleries, Melbourne VIC
• 1997          Niagara Galleries, Melbourne VIC
• 1999          Niagara Galleries, Melbourne VIC
• 2001          Niagara Galleries, Melbourne VIC
• 2006          Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne VIC
• 2006          Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth WA
• 2007          Brett Gallery, Hobart TAS

Selected Group Exhibitions

• 1989          Utopia Women’s Paintings: The First Works on Canvas, S H Ervin Museum, Sydney NSW
• 1989          Utopia Batik, Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs NT
• 1989          Aboriginal Art Now, NERAM, Armidale, NSW
• 1990          Art from Utopia, Orange Regional Gallery, NSW
• 1990          The Last Show, Utopia Art, Sydney NSW
• 1990          Second Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Melbourne VIC
• 1991          Long Hot Summer, Utopia Art, Sydney NSW
• 1992          Bubbles, Baubles & Beads, Utopia Art, Sydney NSW
• 1992          Aboriginal Painting, Austral Gallery, St. Louis, USA
• 1992          Little Friends, Utopia Art, Sydney NSW
• 1993          Utopia Women, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney NSW
• 1993          Utopia Sculpture, Niagara Galleries, Sydney NSW
• 1993          Camp Scenes, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney NSW
• 1994          This Land, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney NSW
• 1994          The Oval Board Collection, Bishop Museum, Hawaii USA
• 1994          The Oval Board Collection, Wadsworth Athenaeum, Connecticut;
• 1996          Fifth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Melbourne VIC
• 1996          Painted People: Sculpture from Utopia, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW
• 1997          28^th Alice Prize, Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment, Alice Springs, NT
• 1997          Finalist, 14^th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art Award, Darwin NT
• 1998          Dreamings, Spazio Pitti Arte, Florence, Italy
• 1998          Art Gallery \’Culture Store’ Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• 1999          Blue Chip II: The Collectors’ Exhibition, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
• 2000          Not the done thing! Niagara Galleries, Sydney
• 2001          Spirituality and Australian Aboriginal Art, Madrid and touring regional Spain
• 2001          Dreamtime, Sammlung Essl, Germany
• 2002          Indecorous Abstraction: Contempoaray Women Painters, Light Square Gallery, Adelaide SA
• 2002          Mary’s Woods, Portland, Oregon USA (Benefit –OHSU Heart Research Centre)
• 2002          The Cove Gallery, Portland, Oregon USA (Benefit -OHSU Heart Research Centre)
• 2002          Art and Soul Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee USA
• 2003          Art from the Dreamtime, Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon USA
• 2003          Mary’s Woods, Portland, Oregon USA (Benefit –OHSU Heart Research Centre)
• 2003          The Cove Gallery, Portland, Oregon USA (Benefit -OHSU Heart Research Centre)
• 2003          Contemporary Aboriginal Art Event, Umpqua Bank, Portland, Oregon USA
• 2003           Art and Soul Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee USA
• 2003          New City Merchants, Knoxville, Tennessee USA
• 2004          Last of the 20^th Century, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs NT
• 2005          Memory as Landscape, October Gallery, London (in assoc. with Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne)
• 2006          Finalist, 23^rd Telstra   National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art Award, Darwin NT
• 2006          Finalist, Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane QLD
• 2006          Art Gallery of Northern Territory, Darwin NT
• 2006          ArtParis 2006 Contemporary Art Fair, Grand Palais, Champs Elysees, Paris France
• 2007          Visions of Utopia, Cooee Aboriginal Art, Sydney NSW
• 2007          Utopia Today, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne VIC
• 2007          Memory As Landscape, Masterpiece @ IXL, Hobart TAS
• 2007          My Way: A Survey of Utopia Artists, Woolloongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane QLD
• 2007          Journeys and Dreams, Gecko Gallery, Broome WA
• 2008          Collectors’ Exhibition 2008, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne
• 2008          Finalist, 25^th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin NT
• 2008          Finalist, Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney NSW
• 2009          Finalist, Blake Prize, The Blake Society, National Art School Gallery, Sydney NSW
• 2009          An Individual Perspective: From the Collection of Lauraine Diggins, Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood
• 2010          The Ngal Sisters: Painting Country: Angelina, Kathleen and Poly Ngal, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne
• 2010          Finalist, 21^st Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane QLD
• 2010          Finalist, Blake Prize, The Blake Society, National Art School Gallery, Sydney NSW
• 2012          Sandover River Stories, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
• 2016          Camel Camp & Beyond, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA

Collections

• National Gallery of Australia, ACT
• Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands
• The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne VIC
• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney NSW
• Art Gallery of South Australia, SA
• Art Gallery of Queensland, Brisbane QLD
• Art Gallery of Western Australia WA
• The Holmes à Court Collection, WA
• Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth WA
• Commonwealth Law Courts, Melbourne VIC
• Artbank, Sydney NSW
• Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla
• Shepparton Art Gallery

Selected Publications

1. 1. Boulter, The Art of Utopia, 1991, Craftsman House Press, NSW
   2. Isaacs, ‘Bush Gardens’ Art & Australia, Vol 35, No 4, 1998, Fine Arts Press, NSW
   3. Kleinert and M. Neale, The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, 2000, Oxford University Press, NSW