Roseanne Morton Petyarre / Bush Medicine Leaves (RM854)

Roseanne Morton Petyarre is a rising talent in the world of contemporary Aboriginal art. Born in 1984 at Atneltye (Boundary Bore), in the Utopia region approximately 280km north-east of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Roseanne was raised in a traditional way and attended school locally so she could remain close to her family and community.

She comes from a renowned family of artists. Her late mother, Gracie Morton Pwerle, was a highly respected artist and a senior custodian of the Anwekety (Bush Plum) Dreaming. Gracie began painting in the 1980s on batik alongside her mother, Myrtle Petyarre, and her sisters — Roseanne’s aunties — Gloria, Kathleen, Violet, Nancy, and Ada Bird Petyarre. All are internationally celebrated artists whose work helped bring the Utopia region to global attention.

From a young age, Roseanne absorbed the cultural knowledge and artistic skills passed down through her mother, aunties, and grandmothers. She paints the Anwekety (Bush Plum) Dreaming, just as her mother did — a story of deep cultural significance involving ceremony, ancestral connections, and the seasonal cycles of this important bush food.

Roseanne’s paintings are composed of flowing brushstrokes that depict the bush plum leaves scattered across Country. The layered movement and colour variations in her work represent the shifting stages of the plant’s life cycle — from the fruiting of the bush plum to the changing colours of its leaves throughout the seasons.

Roseanne lives at Utopia with her husband, Papunya artist James Morris, and their two children. Gentle and immensely talented, she is proudly continuing the artistic traditions of her family and community. With her strong cultural foundation and growing recognition, Roseanne is poised for a long and successful career.

In this painting, Roseanne Morton Petyarre depicts Bush Medicine Leaves, a story connected to the traditional plant knowledge of the women of her family's Country in the Utopia region.

For countless generations, Aboriginal women have gathered native plants for their healing and restorative properties. Knowledge of where particular plants grow, when they should be collected and how they are prepared has been carefully passed from one generation to the next. Depending upon the plant and its purpose, leaves may be dried, crushed or prepared with natural fats and oils to create traditional bush medicines. This knowledge also forms part of the broader cultural and ceremonial life of the women of Utopia.

Roseanne's Bush Medicine Leaves form part of a celebrated Utopia painting tradition closely associated with her extended family. Her great-aunt Gloria Petyarre became internationally renowned for her flowing leaf paintings, and many women of subsequent generations have continued to interpret the subject in their own individual ways.

Roseanne works with both fine, densely layered leaves and larger, more expressive leaf forms. In her small-leaf paintings, hundreds of tapered brushstrokes radiate, overlap and change direction, creating an intricate sense of movement, as though leaves are being swept and turned by the wind across Country. Her large-leaf works use broader, more painterly strokes, allowing individual leaves and changes of colour to become a stronger part of the composition.

The shifting colours and repeated forms create a feeling of growth, abundance and regeneration. Individual leaves become part of a larger rhythm, reflecting continuing cycles of Country and the knowledge associated with gathering, preparing and using its plants.

Through these paintings, Roseanne honours knowledge passed through the women of her family while extending one of Utopia's most recognisable artistic traditions in a style that is distinctly her own.