Ampilatwatja exhibition

An exhibition of works by artists of Ampilatwatja portraying bush medicines.

Featuring Betty Morton Pula, Joycie Morton Petyarre, Natasha Beasley and Sebella Morton Petyarre.

Exhibition Artwork

A four hour drive from Alice Springs, up the Sandover Highway and through Central Australia's remote Utopia region, will get you to a small community called Ampilatwatja nestled on Alyawarr homelands. This is where Betty, Joycie, Natasha and Sebella call home.

Hundreds of tracks and unsealed roads lead off into the bush in every direction. To those familiar to the area, it is renowned for its rich provisions of bush foods and medicines, and venturing out onto country to hunt and collect food is a part of daily life there.

The landscape is notably filled with gum trees, and after good rain the bush springs to life with quick growing and bright green plants, and flowers from lilac to yellow to eye popping magenta.

Many of these plants and trees have medicinal properties including the gum tree.

"You get an axe and skin it. Put it in bucket, boil it. It looks like red wine. You don't drink it; it's a wash for sores."- Joycie Morton

Some plants, like kwenkart (turkey bush) which grows on hillsides, and arreth [pictured below], are boiled with water to make a drink to help with a cold or flu or headache, or as a medicinal wash for sores.

Medicine aside, kwenkart was an 'olden-days' tea too.

Other plants, like ilpengk and artepwel, are crushed and mixed with fat to use as a rubbing medicine.

Working with remote desert artists means anticipating long wait periods between canvases - for various reasons. Some of the works in this exhibition have been in production since mid 2023, and we're beyond excited to now share them; we all are.

Especially Natasha who hasn't been exhibited before, and Joycie who loves an opportunity to capture her beautiful and abundant country on the large canvases.

Thank you for showing your support in simply being here and reading this, but we hope you bring home a beautiful artwork too 🤍

Betty

Just shy of 70, Betty is most happy when she is out bush hunting and gathering. It is where she feels connected to country and culture.

Her vibrant illustrations of country have been included in many art prizes and exhibitions both in Australia and abroad.

Joycie

Daughter to Betty, mother to Nakita Inkamala, friend to many. Alyawarr woman from Ampilatwatja. Bush traveller. Lover of life. Known to those close to her as Mitjui; her beautiful bush name.

Natasha

Married to Laurie Morton Kngwarreye with three beautiful children. Her dream life is to live on country, live of the bush food it provides and make bush medicines.

Sebella

"I was born in Utopia, out bush but I live in Ampilatwatja. I am from a local old family, the Morton’s. I paint bush medicine plants. We used to drink bush medicine to treat skin problems and sores. I like to paint dots, and bush medicine."

AMPILATWATJA