Kathleen Ngale c.1934

Country:             Arlparra, Kurajong

Language:          Anmatyarr, Alywarr

Community:        Camel Camp, Utopia

Now the senior custodian for her country 250 kms North East of Alice Springs, Kathleen Ngale shares with her sisters Poly Ngale and Angelina Pwerle -Ngale, responsibility as the keeper of Arlparra’s cultural knowledge. Kathleen belongs to the oldest living generation of Utopia and is among the most accomplished painters who have worked there during the past 20 years. She began her career in late 1979, creating Batiks prior to the introduction of painting on canvas in the late 1980s.
Kathleen’s works can be interpreted as sophisticated mind maps depicting cultural knowledge of her country as well as its physical geography. Thousands of dots of colour are rained across her brilliant canvases denoting the varied flora and the geographical and sacred sites of the Bush Plum.
Best known for the way in which she depicts the white flowers of the Bush Plum (Artapaly) over a shimmering background of colour, she often employs a variety of blues, purples and reds in her underpainting.
Having exhibited nationally and internationally since 1999 she was a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award for the first time in 2000. She has had regular exhibitions in Australia as well as being shown in ArtParis 2004-2006, October Gallery in London 2005 and Hillside Forum in Tokyo 2008.
Kathleen currently lives at Camel Camp in the Utopia region with her husband Motorbike Paddy and daughter Elizabeth Mpetyan, and continues painting with her sisters Poly, Topsy and Angelina. Her works have already been collected by the Art Gallery of South Australia and Art Gallery of WA and are featured in a number of important private collections in the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Australia.
This painting depicts the bush plum (arnwekety) in Kathleen's unique style of over-dotting. While featuring her Dreaming, it also unmasks the topographical landscape of her country including its claypans, soakages and spinifex mounds.