Utopia Artists

Senior artists from Utopia Homelands present significant artworks based on stories and cultural practices from their clan country. The exhibition includes paintings by the late Cowboy Loy Pwerl (1941-2022), an Eastern Anmatyerr speaker, whose traditional country lies on the western side of the Sandover River on Utopia Station. Cowboy’s role as the custodian of a secondary series of Dreaming sites located throughout this area means that he depicts these sites in his paintings, as well as the nesting place of the Bush Turkey.

Other family members to Cowboy, wife Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray and daughter Genevieve Kemarr Loy, have paintings represented in the exhibition. Also exhibiting are sisters Angelina, Kathleen and Polly Ngal who trace their art practice back to the Utopia women’s art groups of the 1970s and 1980s. Similarly sisters Lucky, Ruby and Sarah Morton Kngwarrey from Rocket Range community at Utopia have long standing connections to the Utopia women’s movement. The exhibition continues at Japingka Gallery until 18 November 2022.