This powerful artwork depicts women preparing for an Awelye, a sacred women’s ceremony. It shows groups of women grinding ochre into a fine powder, mixing it with water and animal fats to create body paint. Senior women expertly paint the breasts, chest, and shoulders of the younger women using traditional tools, while singing songs and telling Dreamtime stories that preserve ancestral knowledge. The painting captures the spiritual, cultural, and social importance of these ceremonies, highlighting women’s roles in maintaining their community’s cultural identity, honouring the land, and passing down sacred traditions through song, dance, and body art. This strong feminist symbol of shared female experience emblemises the power, dynamic importance, and sacred nature of the female spirit.
Maggie Bird Mpetyane, an Anmatyerre artist from the Utopia region, creates vibrant works on canvas and linen inspired by her Country and cultural stories, including the Alpar (Rat-Tail Plant), bush yam, and women’s ceremonial designs known as Awelye. As the eldest daughter of Paddy and Eileen Bird and granddaughter of the renowned Ada Bird Petyarre, Maggie’s art reflects her rich family legacy. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Mbantua Gallery and the World Vision Walkabout, blending traditional stories with contemporary expression.
This is one of the biggest woman’s ceremony paintings made by Maggie/available online currently.
Details:
Stretched Canvas
Oil paint medium
Unframed
1470mm x 770mm
Express and worldwide shipping available
This powerful artwork depicts women preparing for an Awelye, a sacred women’s ceremony. It shows groups of women grinding ochre into a fine powder, mixing it with water and animal fats to create body paint. Senior women expertly paint the breasts, chest, and shoulders of the younger women using traditional tools, while singing songs and telling Dreamtime stories that preserve ancestral knowledge. The painting captures the spiritual, cultural, and social importance of these ceremonies, highlighting women’s roles in maintaining their community’s cultural identity, honouring the land, and passing down sacred traditions through song, dance, and body art. This strong feminist symbol of shared female experience emblemises the power, dynamic importance, and sacred nature of the female spirit.
Maggie Bird Mpetyane, an Anmatyerre artist from the Utopia region, creates vibrant works on canvas and linen inspired by her Country and cultural stories, including the Alpar (Rat-Tail Plant), bush yam, and women’s ceremonial designs known as Awelye. As the eldest daughter of Paddy and Eileen Bird and granddaughter of the renowned Ada Bird Petyarre, Maggie’s art reflects her rich family legacy. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Mbantua Gallery and the World Vision Walkabout, blending traditional stories with contemporary expression.
This is one of the biggest woman’s ceremony paintings made by Maggie/available online currently.
Details:
Stretched Canvas
Oil paint medium
Unframed
1470mm x 770mm
Express and worldwide shipping available
