Anita McIntyre was born in Queanbeyan and has lived and worked in Canberra for most of her life. Graduating in 1976 from what would become the ANU School of Art; she has maintained a strong commitment to the School and its aims (in its several manifestations over the years) and is currently an ANU Visiting Fellow. Her advocacy for the wider Canberra arts community is strong and she is currently President of Strathnairn Arts Association Inc.

McIntyre has been exhibiting since 1979 in solo and group shows in Canberra and elsewhere. Her most recent solo exhibition was at Canberra’s Beaver galleries in 2007. Her work is represented in collections throughout Australia and overseas.

Since the mid-1980s McIntyre has been travelling regularly to remote areas of Australia. The impact of her initial confrontation with the strident and spare radiance of the outback landscape was immediate and powerful and the landscape continues to be the prime source of her art.

In Cultural vessel with fragments No.1, the artist uses the boat form to celebrate the notion of journey. The boat as vessel, as carrier both of property and message, is a straightforward and easily assimilated image/metaphor. For McIntyre, the vessel is evocative not only of the journey undertaken but also of the person(s) undertaking the journey. The marks, pictograms, ideograms, etc which activate the sides of the boat are the souvenirs of personal encounter, the permanent postcards kept as reminders of deep and insightful explorations.

The formal elegance of the form and the pictorial eloquence of its markings raise the concept of the artist as controller of the boat, the guide introducing viewers to their own journeys. McIntyre’s work celebrates the land in a unique combination of form and content.