Aboriginal Painting - Mountain Desert Lizard
Aboriginal Painting - Mountain Desert Lizard
Gracie Morton Pwerle
SKU:Cat.n. GMP 1222
Aboriginal Painting Title: Mountain Desert Lizard (Great Investment)
Aboriginal Artist: Gracie Morton Pwerle 1956-2024
Size: 45 x 45 cm Unframed
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Authenticity:
COA and pictures of the artist holding and signing her work will be provided.
Story:
The Lizard is one of many animal totems of the Australian Aboriginal people and is represented in Aboriginal art and paintings, ancestral rock paintings, and bark art.
Lizard species are still a substantial part of the Central Australian Aboriginal people’s diet and are depicted in Bush Tucker paintings as an Aboriginal food source.
In the Utopia region of Central Australia, there is one unique Lizard called the Mountain Devil Lizard or Thorny Devil Lizard. This is a predominant Aboriginal Dreamtime Story that tells of the Old Woman Mountain Devil Lizard who travelled the vast regions of the Atnangker country, defining the landscape and identifying the sacred sites.
The Mountain Devil Lizard is not only unique in its physical appearance but has a deep Aboriginal spirituality as it is the ancestral totem for the famous sisters: Kathleen Petyarre, Violet Petyarre, Myrtle Petyarre, Gloria Petyarre, Nancy Kunoth Petyarre, Jean Petyarre and Ada Bird Petyarre from Utopia region in Central Australia and passed down to their niece and other family members. They inherited the Mountain Devil Lizard (Arnkerrth) from their paternal grandmother and are the custodians of this significant Dreaming. It is their obligation to maintain this Aboriginal Dreamtime story and pass it on to future generations.
To honour this Dreaming the Petyarre sisters each portray a different artistic interpretation of Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming.