Pacinta Turner

Born: 1999
Region: Utopia (Central Eastern Desert)
Language: Anmattyerre

Pacinta Turner is a remarkably gifted and talented young emerging artist with a highly-pedigreed artistic background, taught to paint her stories by her mother and her elders. The daughter of established Indigenous artists Caroline Numina Pananka and Daniel Pula Turner, Pacinta’s great aunt is Gloria Petyarre and her father is related to the late and renowned artist Minnie Pwerle. Her mother Caroline and her elders have taught and continue to teach Pacinta to paint her cultural dreaming stories.

Pacinta paints “My Country” and her totem dreaming of wallaby which is seen in the tracks in her artworks. The dotted lines depict the wallaby moving from high ground to high ground at night in the desert near her home. Like all Utopia art, from its beginnings and through the explosive impact of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Minnie Pwerle, to the new work by emerging artists such as Pacinta and the Numina sisters, the art of Utopia is constantly re-inventing itself. A young emerging artist, Pacinta’s works show a well-defined sense of space.

Whilst still at school Pacinta was offered a solo exhibition touring interstate . Although young, her paintings have been purchased by astute collectors and investors in Australia and overseas and her works are shown in galleries in the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales. She is becoming a respected cultural representative in art of the story of the Dreamings of her family and relatives and of holding the heritage of an artist in her strong artist families.