c. 1916
Deceased:1996
Language Group:Anmatyerre
Country:Alhalkere, Utopia Region, North East of Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Medium:Acrylic on Canvas and Linen, Batik on Silk and Cotton
Subjects:Alhalkere Country, Atnwelarre (Pencil Yam) and Kame (Seed), Untitled
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was a senior custodian for Alhalkere country. She began painting quite late in her life and had first been introduced to silk batik with a group of women from Utopia in 1977. Emily had been working with and exhibiting batik in Australia and abroad between 1977 and 1987 before taking up acrylics on canvas.
Canvas gave Emily and the other artists a greater freedom of expression to experiment with different styles in which to portray their Dreaming stories. Because batik had been the first medium that the artists at Utopia had really experimented with, and it being rather a 'onehit' medium, they developed quite contrasting styles on canvas and Utopian Art now has probably the most diverse range of styles than any other Aboriginal Art region.
Emily's trademark style of superimposed bold gestural dotwork, sometimes overlaying linear patterns derived from Ceremonial body paint designs, would have been technically impossible in batik. In this way, Kngwarreye, as an artist, was able to fully express her country and Dreamings more accurately, as she had been taught.
Emily was a senior custodian for Alhalkere country. Her paintings, through gestural brushstrokes, have an underlying theme that she describes in her own words as 'all that country- it's whole lot, everything!' meaning that her paintings were not just a landscape, but also embodied the spiritual and conceptual aspects relating to her country's creation (also known as Dreaming).
The landscape aspects include actual landmarks, vegetation, wildlife and seasonal influences in her country. Spiritual aspects involve the ceremonies (or Awelye in Emily's native language, Anmatyerre) which are performed through singing, body paint and dance. Ancestral rights and obligations in which past, present and future simultaneously co-exist and law is passed from generation to generation, is introduced here. Ceremonies are an expression of a co-existence between Aboriginal people and the earth.
