Kathleen Ngale, one of the most senior Anmatyerre elders from the Utopia homelands, was born in the early 1930s, and is custodian of the Bush Plum (Anwekety) from her traditional country, Ahalpere.
Kathleen Ngale began her art career in the late 1970s with over eighty other women from the Utopia region in Central Australia, when a large project was undertaken using the medium of batik. In 1988 the first major painting project at Utopia was launched, and Kathleen along with many of the other women took up painting with acrylics on canvas.
Kathleen's popularity as an artist grew steadily in the early 2000s, and she came to be recognised for her subtly distinctive Bush Plum paintings. These works represented the changing seasonal colours of the plant and its fruit, and were often built up in textured layers of interlacing dots. When Kathleen Ngale describes the Anwekety that feature in her paintings, she refers to the Anwekety as Bush Plum. They are, in fact, small black conkerberries that grow on the plant after good rain.
Kathleen lives with her sisters and extended family on the Utopia homelands, where as an artist Kathleen is both encouraged by them and passes on her enthusiasm to them. Artists within the family group include Polly Ngale, Glady Kemarre and Angelina Pwerle.