Artist: Kathleen Ngala (Ngale, Kngale)

Language Group: Anmatyerr

Region: Camel Camp, Utopia, Central Australia

Dreaming: Mountain Devil Lizard

Kathleen Ngale was a senior Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia region of Central Australia. She was born around 1930 at Camel Camp, roughly 240 km north-east of Alice Springs, in the Anmatyerr language group. Kathleen belonged to a family of respected artists — her older sister was Polly Ngale and her younger sister is Angelina Pwerle Ngala, both also acclaimed Utopia painters. She was the grandmother of artist Denisa Hatches Ngala.

Kathleen began her artistic career in the late 1970s, working in batik alongside more than eighty other women from the Utopia region — part of the movement that first brought Utopia's women artists to prominence. Her batik work was featured in the landmark exhibition Utopia – A Picture Story, drawn from the Holmes à Court Collection, which toured Ireland and Scotland as well as other international venues.

When acrylic paint on canvas swept through Utopia in the late 1980s, Kathleen, like the other women, readily changed mediums, and went on to paint consistently for decades, developing a strong individual style centred on her country and Dreamings. Her popularity grew significantly in the early 2000s for her paintings of Anwekety (Bush Plum, or conkerberry) — small black berries that emerge after the Utopia region's rains. She rendered them in complex layered dotting, with underlying deep tones overlaid by subtly blended highlights, producing an intricacy and depth that drew comparisons to the work of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Minnie Pwerle and Kathleen Petyarre. She also painted the Arnkerrthe (Mountain Devil Lizard) Dreaming and Awelye (women's ceremony).

Kathleen belonged to the oldest generation of Utopia artists still living and working in recent decades and was regarded as a senior custodian of the cultural knowledge of her country, Arlparra. She spoke little English but loved to talk about her Dreamings and country and remained enthusiastic about teaching the wider world about her paintings throughout her life. Her influence extended to her family, with her children and grandchildren also taking up painting.

She continued to live with her extended family in the Utopia region until her death in 2021.

National Gallery of Victoria

The National Gallery of Australia

QAGOMA (Brisbane)

The Holmes à Court Collection

Awards: She was a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2000 and 2008, and a similar Bush Plum Dreaming work was a finalist in the Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2008.

• 1990 — Utopia: A Picture Story, an exhibition of 88 works on silk from the Holmes à Court Collection, toured Ireland and Scotland

• 2001 — Utopia, a Special Painting Place, Bett Gallery, Hobart, TAS

• 2002 — Two Sisters, Kathleen and Polly, Lorraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

• 2002 — Australian Modern, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, Italy

• 2004–2006 — ArtParis International Contemporary Art Fair, Grand Palais, Paris, France

• 2005 — October Gallery, London, UK

• 2005–2007 — Luminous: Contemporary Art from the Western Desert (travelling exhibition), Manly Art Gallery & Museum; Bundoora Homestead Art Centre; La Trobe Regional Gallery; Flinders University Art Museum; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery; Manning Regional Art Gallery; Grafton Regional Art Gallery; Tamworth Regional Gallery

• 2006 — Galerie Clément, Vevey, Switzerland

• 2006 — Lorraine Diggins exhibition, London, UK

• 2006 — Senior Women of Utopia, GalleryG, Brisbane, QLD

• 2007 — Patterns of Power: Art from the Eastern Desert, Simmer on the Bay Gallery, Sydney, NSW

• 2007 — Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France

• 2007 — Desert Song, Brush with Art Festival, Prairie Hotel, Parachilna, SA

• 2008 — Emily Kngwarreye and Her Legacy, Tokyo, Japan

• 2008 — Galerie Brenart, Brussels, Belgium

• 2008 — Power of Place, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA

• 2008 — Utopia and Beyond, Barry Stern Gallery

• 2008 — Wynne Prize finalist exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

• 2009 — JGM Art, London, UK

• 2010 — Spring, Kate Owen Gallery, Rozelle, NSW

• 2012–2013 — Australian Embassy, Paris, France

• 2014 — Visions of Utopia, Mitchell Fine Art, Brisbane, QLD

• 2014 — Metro Gallery, Victoria (in conjunction with Delmore Gallery, NT)

• 2017 — Desert Dots II, Utopia Lane Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

• 2017 — Utopia: The Artists of Delmore Downs, Yaama Ganu Gallery, Moree, NSW

• 2018 — Beyond the Veil, Olsen Gruin Gallery, New York, USA