Artists

Born in the 1940’s, Kathleen’s country is Ahalpere in the Utopia region, north-east of Alice Springs.

Sometimes spelt Ngale, Kathleen Ngala began her art career in the late 1970’s in the medium of batik with over eighty other women from the Utopia Region in Central Australia. Her work in batik is featured in Utopia - A Picture Story. 

When the acrylics on canvas movement swept Utopia in the late 1980’s, Kathleen like the other women swiftly changed mediums. Kathleen’s popularity as an artist grew in the early late 1990’s and 2000’s for her simplistic yet beautiful ‘Anwekety’ paintings. These works represented her Dreaming, the “wild bush plum”. 

Known as anwekety by the Anmatyerre people north of Alice Springs, the conkerberry or conkleberry, is a sweet black berry fruit that grows on the plant Carissa lanceolata, developing from a fragrant white flowers that blooms after rain. It ripens from green to purple then black. The fruit looks similar to a plum, which is why it is often referred to in English as bush plum. The berries are collected when ripe, stored dry, soaking them in water again before eating.

The plant also has medicinal properties: the orange inner bark from the roots is soaked in water and used as a medicinal wash, particularly for skin and eye conditions. The thorns on the shrub can be used to cure warts.

Kathleen painting became less structured, as she experimented with colour and brush strokes in creating works that had energy and intensity, and canvases that exuded clouds of luminosity. In celebrating the seasons and productivity of her country through her paintings, her subliminal mapping of her country were also about the survival of her people and their culture through their art.

Kathleen’s work has been exhibited around the world and is often featured in Aboriginal Art Auctions. Speaking little English, Kathleen is enthusiastic in communicating about her work and the stories that her paintings are about.