Pantjit Mary McLean

Dr Pantjit Mary McLean paintings reflect memories of early life living in the country, daily events hunting, and the dreaming. Her works has been exhibited and is collected widely throughout Australia at major galleries and institutions.

Mary commenced drawing and painting in 1992 and has since steadily established her position as an established visual artist. Mary's paintings are visually distinct because of the manner of the animals, birds and the topography of the land is portrayed.  Her work is instantly recognisable as quirky and individual.

In 1995 Mary was awarded the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and Winner of the 1996 Festival of Perth Artist.  Curtin University of Technology, Perth awarded Mary an Honary Doctorate of Letters for her contribution to the community and reconciliation through her art and in 2000 Mary received the Australian National Heritage Award.

In 1997, Mary received funding from the Australia Council, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts board for developing a series of paintings depicting her life story.  In 2003, she was a recipient of an Australia Council, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts fellowship. The fellowship enabled her to produce a series of small boards (76 pieces) placed together to form a mosaic of a large single work called “Palunya”.  “Palunya” includes both acrylic paintings and pencil drawings which represented events and experiences recalled from her early life growing up in family life in the Western Desert before white settlement. 

Mary works has been exhibited and is collected widely throughout Australia at major galleries and institutions.  A retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute in Adelaide on the 26 May 2005 with “Palunya” the centrepiece of the retrospective.