Born: 1922

Died: 2016

Language: Anmatyerre & Alyawarre

Region: Utopia

Mary was a much loved member of Utopia's art community, having been one of the original group of batik artists which formed in the 1980's.

Mary's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions over the past three decades and her work was featured in publications as early as 1989 in Utopia Women’s Paintings: the First Work on Canvas by Anne Marie Brody.

Many of her works during the boom of the 1990's represented the Kurrajong Dreaming. Common elements found in these pieces were green leaves of the Kurrajong tree which had medicinal qualities, a small lizard found in the Kurrajong tree and the red ochre and white body paint designs of her country.

Some of Mary's most popular pieces were her series of 'dump dots' in warm neutrals or colourful pairings, which demanded more work from her; and she was happy to greet this recognition with busy painting-filled days. These popular artworks represented her country Antarrengeny or the Wild Orange called Amern Altwerr.

Country paintings were often sectioned with diagonal lines cutting through from the corners, creating what appeared to be a birds-eye perspective of the outback desert she called home. 

Mary was the first wife of a man named Old Billy Morton and together they had seven children. Many of them continue to live on their traditional country just south of Mary's original home.

Mary, along with her sister Katie Kemarre and other Antarrengeny women, regularly made the trip north to perform ceremony as required. The colours that belong to Antarrengeny for ceremony are red ochre and white, and this is what the women would paint on their bodies in a deliberate pattern of lines. These are the same designs you can see in Mary's paintings whenever she chose to depict body paint. 

Collections

The Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, WA
Mbantua Gallery Collection, Alice Springs, NT
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, USA

Exhibitions

1989 Utopia Women's Paintings, the first Works on Canvas, A Summer Project,

1988-1989, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW1990Utopia - A Picture Story, an

Exhibition of 88 works on Silk by Utopian artists, Holmes à Court Collection, toured Eire and Scotland

1990 Stanislawsk-Birnberg, Margo, Journeylines ©

1991 The Eighth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT

1991 Aboriginal Women's Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW

1993 The Tenth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT

1994 Yiribana, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW

2002-2004 Mbantua Gallery USA exhibitions

2004-2006 Evolution of Utopia - opened by the Honorable Robert Hill, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT

2005 Small Wonders, Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT