As seen through the eyes (and lens) of esteemed artist and our Utopia correspondent Genevieve Loy are flashes of bush tomato flowers, native desert blossoms and other beautifully captured moments from bush tucker gathering in Anmatyerre country - featuring a ripe bush banana (below), it's taste concisely compared to that of a "nutty cucumber" by gallery director, Venita Poblocki.
Utopia is a remote Aboriginal homelands region nestled in the Northern Territory, some 270 km north-east of Alice Springs. It covers a vast area of desert terrain - approximately 3,500 square kilometres - and is home to several Aboriginal language groups, including the Alyawarre, Anmatyerre and Kaytej peoples. Known not only for its vibrant landscape of red soil, rocky outcrops, and winding, intersecting creek beds, Utopia is renowned as a region that has produced some of the most famous Aboriginal artists since the genesis of the Central and Western Desert art movements. The emergence of artists such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Gloria Petyarre significantly influenced the contemporary industry of Aboriginal art as it gained momentum during the second half of the 20th century. Since the formation of the Women’s Batik Group in 1978, where female artists began painting intricate designs on brightly coloured silks and fabrics, Utopia has forged a legacy of artistic excellence - a seemingly boundless source of creative spirit, nurtured by the rich cultural significance of the region and its unmatched sense of community.
Genevieve's relationship to her country is a primary influence to her art, such as her Bush Turkey Dreaming paintings. Cowboy Loy Pwerle (dec.), Genevieve's father, was a senior custodian of the story of the Bush Turkey Dreaming - Genevieve paints these stories and her father's country, and with a delicate hand, depicts the tracks of the bush turkey as it searches for seeds and other tucker, making its way to the waterhole.
Using the traditional dotting technique, Genevieve transforms her canvases with meticulously curled, elegant wisps of harmonious colour, and masterfully aligns delicate segments the vibrant to that correlate to the bush turkey's path to the water hole. Genevieve's mature grasp of colour, design and resolved aesthetic direction express Genevieve's own re-imagining of the Dreaming stories.
