Between 1990 and 1991 Petyarre travelled to London, Ireland and India with the exhibition “Utopia – A Picture Story” as a representative of the Utopia women, whose works the exhibition featured. In 1991 Petyarre held her first solo exhibition at Australian Galleries in New York and at Utopia Art, Sydney where she held other solo shows between 1993-2006.Petyarre’s career accelerated after winning Australia’s longest running art prize, the Wynne Prize for Landscape, established in 1897, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999 for her work “Leaves”, an abstract work consisting of swirling leaf shaped brush strokes. In receiving the Wynne Prize Petyarre became the first Indigenous Australian artist ever to win a major art prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. As demand increased for Utopian art Petyarre travelled with her art to many countries and exhibited in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, the USA, Japan and galleries throughout Australia.Her involvement in founding the Utopian art movement and significant body of work gives Petyarre an important place in Australian art history. Petyarre has gone on to be a finalist in the Wynne Prize several more times, as well as having her works acquired in many prestigious institutions, both in Australia and internationally.
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