Alison Munti Riley b. 1966

Alison Munti Riley is an acclaimed Pitjantjatjara artist with a bold and confident style of painting, drawn from her seniority and breadth of experience. Alison’s artworks have been exhibited worldwide and appear in numerous publications, and she won the People’s Choice Award in the 28th Telstra Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her Seven Sisters painting.

Alison’s mother is Betty Munti, who taught her to paint whilst working at Ernabella Arts in 1989. Her mother taught her the art of batik and screen printing fabric. As a child, Alison grew up at Pukatja (Ernabella) where she went to school before she moved to Amata with her family around 1990. Alison trained as a teacher but says, “[her] arm kept reaching for the paint brush”, so became a fulltime artist instead. Alison is a vibrant person and her artworks reflect her colourful and jovial personality. Alison also teaches painting and story to her daughters, emerging artists Anthea and Amelia Riley. 

Alison primarily paints the journeys of women crossing her homeland, mapping the features of the land and sacred sites from a topographic point of view. The stories she paints are Seven Sisters Dreaming, Kungka Kutjara (Two Women), Hilly Country, and the Mamu (Devil) story, among others. Alison loves to sit and tell jokes and talk about stories, old and new, and her skill for storytelling is evident in her paintings.