Lucky Morton Kngwarreye

Lucky Morton Kngwarreye was born in approximately 1952 and comes from Utopia Community, east of Alice Springs in Central Australia. Her mother is renowned Aboriginal artists Mary Morton Kemarre. Lucky is a member of one of the most famous Aboriginal artist families – the Kngwarreye family, with Emily Kame Kngwarreye being the most highly sought after and collectable Aboriginal artist of all time.

As a young girl Lucky attended a bush school near Hatcher’s Creek, north east of her homelands. She grew up at MacDonneoll Downs Station at the Kurrajong Camp. Later she attended Batchelor College in Alice Springs and also studied in Darwin.

Lucky began painting in around 1977 and participating in some of the famous community projects held at Utopia. She was one of a group of women that participated in the “Utopia: A Picture Story” project where the women were taught the art of silk batik making and used this medium to depict bush scenes. This project was such as success that it was exhibited all around Australia as well as in Eire and Scotland. The collection was later acquired in full by the Holmes a Court Collection. In 1989 a further community project was held in Utopia, titled “A Summer Project”, the women artists of Utopia were introduced to canvas and acrylic paints. The result of this project was a mass explosion of creativity and colour and it was the launching pad for many of the women there particularly Emily Kame Kngwarreye, as well as the famous Petyarre sisters.

Lucky has been participating in group exhibitions ever since. Her early paintings were vividly bright and colourful as she depicted her traditional Dreamtime stories of women’s body paint (Awelye), Honey Grevillea (Tharrkarr), Honey Ant (Yerramp) and various desert flowers (Alpety). Lucky paints the two countries around Utopia which are representative of the region she was born and has lived – Ngkwarlerlanem and Arnkawenyerr. Her more recent paintings show a slightly new direction with beautifully fine and intricate overlay of subtle understated colour images. The overlay almost appears as a silk patchwork over a muted pastel colour tone. The artworks that Central Art features are a prime example of this new style.

Lucky is a talented artist who has her artworks in several Australian collections and has participated in a variety of group exhibitions all around Australia and in the USA. In 1991 she was a selected entrant of the prestigious Australia Art prize, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. I (Sabine Haider, Director of Central Art) enjoy working with Lucky and enjoy seeing her style evolve.