Belinda Golder Kngwarreye

Who is Belinda Golder Kngwarreye?

Belinda is an Australian Aboriginal artist belonging to the Anmatyerre language group from Utopia near Alice Springs in Central Australia.

What is Belinda’s family art connection?

Belinda has strong artistic connections within her family. Her grandmother is leading Utopia artist Polly Ngale and her mother, Bessie Purvis Petyarre and sister Janet Golder are also accomplished artists. Artists Kathleen Ngale and Angelina Ngale are her great aunts.

What are Belinda’s major painting themes?

Belinda paints the Bush Plum Dreaming story that she inherits from her grandmother Polly Ngale. Her technique is to render the many colours of the bush plum plant as the fruits ripen. The bush plum is known as anwekety and only fruits for a few weeks of the year. In the Jukurrpa Dreaming story, the bush plum seeds were blown all over the ancestral lands by the winds, and they bore fruit on Utopia lands. The first anwekety of the Dreaming grew there and became part of the food of the Anmatyerre people. The Dreaming story of the seeds and the ripening of the fruits are all included in the story of Bush Plum.

The conkerberry (or conkleberry) known as Anwekety, in Anmatyerre, or bush plum. It has a sweet black fruit, similar to a plum, that is favoured by desert aboriginals. They only grow on the plant (Carissa lanceolata) for a few weeks of the year, however people from Utopia collect plenty of them and store them dry, soaking them in water again before they are consumed. The plant of the conkerberry is a tangled, spiny shrub that can grow up to 2m high. After rain, fragrant white flowers bloom. This plant also bares medicinal properties. The orange inner bark from the roots can be soaked in water and the resultant solutions can be used as a medicinal wash. This is particularly favoured for skin and eye conditions. The thorns on the shrub can be used to cure warts. In the Dreamtime, winds blew from all directions, carrying the anwekety seed over Belinda’s ancestors’ land. The first anwekety of the Dreamings then grew, bore fruit and dropped more seeds. Many winds blew the seeds all over the Dreaming lands.

Belinda’s art themes

• Bush Plum Dreaming
• Atnwelarre (Pencil Yam),
• Kame (Pencil Yam Seed)
• Awelye (Women’s Ceremony and Body Paint Designs)

What is Belinda’s painting technique?

Belinda Golder uses the painting techniques developed by master artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye to impart the many colours of the plant, seeds, flowers and fruit of the bush plum.
Belinda uses a method where she loads the brush with many tones of colour as she works the dotting method across the canvas, often painting wet on wet, so the colours continue to blend into one another. Her medium is acrylic on canvas.

Aboriginal Art Status

Rising Star

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 Sounds of Summer 2, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle

View:

Janet Golder Kngwarreye
Kudditji Kngwarreye

Read:

Spirit of Place – Amanda Westley & Kudditji Kngwarreye

A Salute To Kudditji Kngwarreye