Gloria Petyarre started painting some twenty five years ago and is one of the major Utopia based Aboriginal artists. Like all the women artists at Utopia, she began by painting batik designs on silk before moving to painting with acrylics on canvas.

Utopia is some 300kms north-east of Alice Springs. The painting style from this area is commonly described as 'central desert' painting and is one of the most famous Aboriginal painting groups in the world. Several of Gloria’s works are characterized by bands of different color, which create a dynamic optical effect.

Her main Dreamings that she paints are the Mountain Devil Lizard, Bush Medicine Leaves, Emu, Yam and Grass Seed as well as the traditional body paint designs worn by women.

Gloria has traveled and exhibited throughout Australia and internationally. She is the first Aboriginal artist to have won Australia’s most prestigious landscape art award, the ‘Wynne Painting Prize’, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999 and was selected as a finalist in 2006. Gloria's work has featured many times in the most important Aboriginal art prize in the country, the ‘Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Straight Art Award’ in Darwin.

Her work is represented in all major public collections and many corporate collections throughout Australia and internationally, including the Robert Holmes a' Court Collection, Macquarie Bank Collection, Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia, the British Museum, Aboriginal Art Museum Netherlands and the Singapore Art Museum.