Shirley Dixon Kemarre

Shirley began painting for Mbantua Gallery in 1999. Her mother, Elsie Dixon, and many of her extended family members are talented dot painters. Shirley grew up at Alcoota as the eldest child of five girls; Thelma, Elizabeth, Maureen and Dianne Dixon. She paints both the stories that belong to her father’s country and her mother’s. Like her mother, she speaks the Arrernte language but she also speaks Alyawarre. Shirley is married to George Club Petyarre (Lena Pwerle’s son) and they have two sons. She lives with them at Tomahawk camp in the Utopia Region, N E of Alice Springs.