Gloria Petyarre
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Gloria Petyarre (b. 1945 at Atnangkere Soakage), Australian Aboriginal artist from the Anmatyerre community who live just north of Alice Springs.
She won Australia's longest running art prize, the Wynne Prize in 1999 with Leaves, being the first Aboriginal person to win one of the Art Gallery of New South Wales's major prizes. She travelled to Ireland, England and India in 1990 as part of the Utopia – A picture story exhibition. She held her first solo exhibition in 1991. She is represented in major Australian galleries such as the National Gallery of Australia. She is the niece of Emily Kngwarreye and the younger sister of Kathleen Petyarre, two of the greatest Aboriginal artists.
She lived at the Utopia community after 1977, where she started batik painting, exhibiting in shows around Australia for ten years. She began work on the 'Summer Project' in 1989 which involved translating the batik paintings onto canvas. She was one of the founding members of this Utopia Women's Batik Group. She paints several Dreamtime stories such as Pencil Yam, Bean, Emu and Mountain Devil Lizard and Small Brown Grass.
Several of Gloria's sisters are also artists, the most notable being Kathleen Petyarre.