Roseanne Morton Petyarre/ Bush Medicine Leaves

A Utopia artist who inherited Bush Plum knowledge from her mother, senior artist Gracie Morton Pwerle. Her wider practice continues a widely respected family lineage shaped by the women who established Utopia’s reputation. Her late mother, Gracie Morton Pwerle, was a highly respected artist and a senior custodian of the Anwekety (Bush Plum) Dreaming.

Born in 1984 at Atneltye (Boundary Bore), in the Utopia region approximately 280km north-east of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Roseanne was raised in a cultural way and attended school locally so she could remain close to her lineage and community. Gracie started creating art in the 1980s on batik alongside her mother, Myrtle Petyarre, and her sisters, Roseanne’s aunties, Gloria, Kathleen, Violet, Nancy, and Ada Bird Petyarre. She paints the Anwekety (Bush Plum) Dreaming, just as her mother did, a narrative of deep cultural significance involving ceremony, ancestral connections, and the seasonal cycles of this significant bush food.