DELVINE PITJARA
Delvine Pitjara was born in 1982 at Alhalkere (Boundary Bore, Utopia region, Northern Territory) which is approximately 270km North East of Alice Springs. Delvine is part of a family of highly talented famous artists, including her late mother Glory Ngale, and extended family Jeannie Petyarre, Rosemary Pitjara, Kudditji Kngwarreye and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. She is the younger sister of artists Anna Pitjara (Petyarre) and Joy Purvis Petyarre.
Growing up surrounded by artistic women, she began painting at a young age, having learnt her ancestral stories and painting from her mother, aunties and extended family. She grew up in Utopia and attended Aniltji School. She began painting for galleries at the tender age of 19.
Delvine is continuing the tradition of many Utopian artists by paying homage to her ancestral stories through sacred ceremony, traditional customs and rituals, as well as painting. These practices keep the traditional teachings alive as they are passed to younger generations. Delvine is a custodian of other ancestral dreamings, but to date only paints Atnwelarre and country.
Delvine currently lives in Alice Springs with her daughter and extended family.
Sandhills and Riverbeds
Delvine’s artworks depict the sandhills and riverbeds of her Utopian homelands. She paints with a minimalist palette of predominantly black and white.
Using a tiny dropper bottle of white paint on a black canvas, she meticulously builds an abstract areal view of her country. Depicting the ridges of undulating sandhills and the dry riverbeds, with their life giving soakages, as well as other important geographical and cultural sites of the land.
She creates an atmospheric impression of country that is contemporary while honouring 60,000 years of her ancestral traditions and country.
Her growing popularity and contemporary aesthetic is seeing her paintings become increasingly popular amongst art enthusiasts and interior stylists.
