Gloria Petyarre was born around 1945 on her Country at Atnangkere and grew up living in the traditional way, before moving to the settlement at Utopia. She was one of the famous Petyarre sisters, alongside Kathleen, Ada Bird, Violet, Nancy, Myrtle and Jean.

In 1977 the people of Utopia gained a 99-year lease over the Utopia pastoral station, bought for them through the Aboriginal Land Fund. The same year a batik program began that went on to give the community an income and wide recognition. Gloria was one of the original artists in the program, and became one of its leading batik makers.

Where the founding painters at Papunya were mostly men, working with teacher Geoffrey Bardon, the arts advisers at Utopia were women, and the women artists flourished. Gloria painted the women’s subjects that came to define Utopia art. She passed away in June 2021.

When the Utopia women moved to acrylic on canvas in the late 1980s, the leading artists quickly mastered its possibilities, with a far wider range of colour and tone than batik allowed. Gloria stood out. She used close tonal values of different colours to create a dynamic optical intensity.

Some works feature powerful linear patterns drawn from women’s body painting, outlined in single dots; in others the pattern sinks into a sea of dots until it dissolves into the background. Her best-known subject, Bush Medicine Leaves, sweeps across the canvas in thousands of shimmering brushstrokes. She also painted the Arnkerrthe (Mountain Devil Lizard), her totem.