Skin: Pitjara (also known as Petyarr)

Language Group:  Alyawarr

Region: Atnwengerrp, Utopia region, Northern Territory

Dreaming: Red-bud mallee, native grevillea, Awelye (Body Paint)

Jessie Pitjara Hunter was born in 1957 at MacDonald Downs and is the sister of artists Sandy, Annie and Susan Pitjara Hunter. Her work has been collected by many significant public and private galleries and institutions.

Jessie’s Dreaming is Awely (Body Paint). In her paintings, she symbolizes all that is associated with Awely – the decorated torsos of the women, the women’s ceremonial sites or dreaming places where women are gathered and the other representations of the ceremony – digging and music sticks, coolamons and feather adornments. Her paintings depict different body designs which are painted on the women’s breasts, arms and shoulders. She paints these designs from an aerial perspective.

• Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands.

• Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.

• The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

• The Holmes a Court Collection, Perth.

• 1985 - The National Gallery - The Second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin. 

• 1989 - A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne; Design Warehouse Sydney [through Lauraine Diggins Fine Art]; 

• 1988-89, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney. Utopia Women's Paintings, the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project

• 1990 - Utopia - A Picture Story, an exhibition of 88 works on silk from the Holmes a Court Collection by Utopia artists which toured Eire and Scotland. 

• 2005 - Black Ink: Indigenous Prints from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Australia, Canberra

• 2009 - East-West, Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia

• 2009 - Aboriginal art in Korea, Gong Pyeong Art Space, Seoul

• 2010 - Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia

• 2012 - Utopian art, Without Pier Gallery, Melbourne

• 2013 - Landscape of our Dreaming -Red Poles, McLaren Vale

• 2014 - Indigenous Group Show, Without Pier Art Gallery, Melbourne

• 2015 - Wimbledon Fine Art Exhibition, Wimbledon Village, London, UK

• 2017 - Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia

• 2018 - Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia

• 2019 - Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia

• 2021 - Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, South Australia