Gloria Petyarre Archives

Muse/News: Ikat Sights, Chocolate Popcorn, and Mural Discovery

Rachel Eggers on May 15 2023

SAM News

Patricia Belyea of Okan Arts, a textiles and tours small business, wrote about Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth at the Seattle Art Museum. You’ve got two weeks left to see this dazzling show, which closes after Monday, May 29.

“There is much to see at SAM—from glances across whole galleries to up-close inspections of the threads and patterns!”

For Alta Journal, multimedia artist Perri Lynch Howard reflects on the many meanings she’s found over the years in Gloria Tamerre Petyarre’s Leaves (2002), a beloved work in SAM’s collection (that’s now on view).

“I remain transfixed by Leaves, a monumental work informed by totemic geography, dreamtime, and ancestral wisdom rooted in the land.”

The American Alliance of Museums’ blog on “How Museum Stores Are Embracing Sustainability and Inclusivity”; they include a mention of SAM Shop’s featuring of works made by local Indigenous artists.

Curiocity shares “15 of the absolute best beaches you can find in and around Seattle,” including the Olympic Sculpture Park and its pocket beach.

“The Olympic Sculpture Park is just straight up one of the coolest spots in the city.”

Local News

“Renders new truths from old objects”: Hannelore Sudermann for University of Washington Magazine on Abstract Truth, Preston Wadley’s show now on view at Bellevue Arts Museum.

As more works from the collection went on sale at Christies, Margo Vansynghel of the Seattle Times dove deep to find out “what happened to Paul Allen’s Northwest art collection.”

At the opening night of the 49th Seattle International Film Festival, the organization announced that it has acquired the shuttered Cinerama theater. Crosscut’s Brangien Davis shared the good news.

As for the big question on Cinerama fans’ minds: ‘We will have chocolate popcorn, absolutely,’ SIFF artistic director Beth Barrett said in a phone call on the eve of the festival. ‘That was one of the first questions for all of us, too,’ she added with a laugh. ‘The deal did not hinge on it, but it seemed important emotionally.’”

Inter/National News

Jaeyong Park for Artsy on “10 Standout Artists at the 14th Gwangju Biennale,” including former Saturday University guest Yuki Kihara.

Via Tessa Soloman for ARTnews: “Manet’s ‘Olympia’ Will Travel to the United States for the First Time This Fall.”

Via Eve M. Kahn for the New York Times: “Vanished Murals From the Empire State Building Rediscovered.”

“Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts gallery will offer these works, two oval murals of damsels engulfed in rainbows of blossoms and foliage, which the German-born artist Winold Reiss painted in 1938 for a Longchamps restaurant at the Empire State Building’s base. (It’s now a Starbucks.)”

And Finally

Via NPR: “Meet the father-son journalists from Alabama who won a Pulitzer and changed laws.”

– Rachel Eggers, SAM Associate Director of Public Relations

Photo: Alborz Kamalizad.

Object of the Week: Leaves

Pam McClusky on Oct 14 2021

White flecks on a black background, over and over, could be an invitation to savor minimalism, or is it also something else? Viewers have guessed that it is fur, feathers, or seaweed floating in a tide pool. Then the label gives it away with the title, Leaves, and suddenly you’re watching a maze of leaves fly in the air. An abundance of layered, swirling movement surrounds you. A closer look reveals how strategic the painter is. She places each stroke of paint so carefully that no two leaves merge, but barely touch each other. Something is being said when the crowd is composed of leaf after leaf, each made distinctive with infinitesimal difference.

In the fall season in the Northwest, leaves are letting loose everywhere. We may notice them as masses, but often may not recognize their other properties. Gloria Petyarre, whose home is in the center of Australia near Alice Springs, is honoring leaves filled with medicine. She was taught by her mother to mix fat from kangaroos and echidnas with crushed leaves to make an ointment to apply to one’s face and hair. The ointment carries a powerful aroma and is a potent aid in helping fight off colds. Kurrajong, the source of the leaves, is also known as the perfect shade tree (Brachyohiton Populneus). It is a tree that only grows in the sun, has deep roots to survive droughts, is a host to butterflies, is fire resistant, and drops its leaves only in dry winters.

Petyarre’s family is famous for painting to enlighten outsiders about their knowledge of their homeland. Her shimmering waves of leaves—created by powerful ancestors—convey their value in her interactive world. Now is the ideal time to take a hint from her and appreciate leaves for the botanical wonder they offer.

– Pam McClusky, Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African and Oceanic Art

Images: Leaves, 2002, Gloria Tamerr Petyarre, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 70 7/8 x 157 1/2 in., Gift of Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan, in honor of Virginia and Bagley Wright, and in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2012.21 © Gloria Petyarre.