Lanita is the eldest of the celebrated Numina sisters, whose bold, confident, and colourful paintings are enjoyed in homes throughout Australia and all over the world. Her sisters are Sharon, Selina, Caroline, Louise and Jacinta – and each of the Numina sisters are highly regarded Aboriginal Artists in their own right. Lanita, her sisters and two brothers are the children of Barbara Pananka Price and the late Douglas Petyarre, and it was two of Douglas’ sisters – the internationally-renowned Aboriginal Artists Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre – who taught their nieces to paint the Bush Medicine Leaf ceremony (Aunty Gloria) and Thorny Lizard Dreaming (Aunty Kathleen). The Numina Sisters are also the great nieces of Emily Kngwarreye and Kudditji Kngwarreye, who along with Minnie Pwerle and Ada Bird Petyarre, are the most internationally acclaimed artists of the Aboriginal Art Movement of the Utopia Aboriginal Lands of the Eastern Desert that emerged in the 1970s.
Even though Lanita began her career as an artist later than her talented sisters, she has developed a unique and incredibly popular individual style, and her works include ‘Thorny Lizard Dreaming’, ‘Little Brown Dingo Dreaming’ (characterised by her intricate layering of colourful dots – the white dots representing the little brown dingo ancestor travelling across the desert in search of water and food), and ‘My Country’ celebrating the women’s ceremonies and important features of the sacred landscape of her Utopian homelands. In 2004, Lanita was honoured when the Danish community of the Northern Territory chose one of Lanita’s paintings to be presented as their wedding gift to Princess Mary and Prince Frederick of Denmark.
