Belinda Golder Kngwarreye is an Anmatyerre artist from the Utopia Homelands of Central Australia. She was born in 1986 and her clan country is at Mulga Bore. Belinda has strong artistic connections within her family – her grandmother is leading Utopia artist Polly Ngale, and her mother Bessie Purvis Petyarre and sister Janet Golder are also accomplished artists. Artists Kathleen Ngale and Angelina Ngale are her great aunts.

Belinda has also learnt painting techniques from her sister, well known artist Janet Golder Kngwarreye. In recent years, Belinda has painted a series of works titled ‘My Country’ which depicts her ancestral Country of Alhalkere. These artworks are rich in story, combining imagery of women’s ceremonies, bush tucker, as well as features of the Utopia landscape.

Belinda paints the Bush Plum Dreaming story that she inherits from her grandmother Polly Ngale. Her technique is to render the many colours of the bush plum plant as the fruits ripen. The bush plum is known as anwekety and only fruits for a few weeks of the year. In the Jukurrpa Dreaming story the bush plum seeds were blown all over the ancestral lands by the winds and they bore fruit on Utopia lands. The first anwekety of the Dreaming grew there and became part of the food of the Anmatyerre people.

The Dreaming story of the seeds and the ripening of the fruits are all included in the story of Bush Plum. Belinda Golder uses the painting techniques developed by master artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye to impart the many colours of the plant, seeds, flowers and fruit of the bush plum. Belinda inherits aspects of the Kame Dreaming from her paternal grandparents. Belinda used the method where she loads the brush with many tones of colour as she works the dotting method across the canvas, often painting wet on wet, so the colours continue to blend into one another.

Commissions:  

Coles, Alice Springs, Belinda’s paintings, ‘My Country / Bush Plums’ feature on the walls, main entrance.