Anna Price Pitjara

Anna Price Pitjara

Known also as: Anna Petyarre

 Date of Birth: c. 1965

Region: Boundary Bore, Utopia, Northern Territory

Language: Anmatyerre

Anna Price Pitjara (Petyarre) is the daughter of the late Glory Ngala and niece to the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye.  Her country is Alhalkere and her language is Anmatyerre, although she is also fluent in English. Anna is wife number two to Colin Price Kemarre. They have two daughters and one son. She is also a grandmother, with five grandchildren.

Anna has painted since her early childhood, but began selling her paintings in 1996. She was part of the early Batik group which produced desert designs on silk and cotton with the batik technique. These art works were produced first in 1977, the very year that the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre people began moving back on to their traditional land at Utopia Station where they resettled in a variety of outstations. The success of the batik movement led eventually to the artists, (mostly women) trying their hand at painting with acrylic on linen in the summer of 1988-9. Their efforts were well coordinated by CAAMA in what was termed "A Summer Project".


Anna paints the ‘Bush Yam’ and ‘Bush Yam Seed Dreamings’. These are the ‘Dreamings’ of her grandfather and father’s country from the Boundary Bore region. Her ‘dreamings’ also include ‘Wildflower’ and ‘Bush Potato’. As a traditional Aboriginal woman who engages in sacred ceremonies, she also paints the women's body paint aspects of women's ceremony.


Anna is a precise artist whose talent brings a level of sensitivity in translating her culture to the canvas. Her paintings of the Bush Yam Seed consist of many intricate connected loops the true size of the Bush Yam Seeds with very small blocks of colour, which flow in such a way that is soothing to the eye.


Anna’s paintings have been exhibited extensively throughout Australia since 1996. Her work has attracted increasing attention internationally, and she has participated in two major exhibitions of work by Utopia women artists in the United States: in Chicago in 2000, and California in 2001.