Emily Kame Kngwarreye is widely regarded as Australia's most important and successful female artist. Her remarkable career lasted just seven years prior to her death at 86 years of age in 1996. The painterly quality and originality of her works extended her influence beyond the reach of Indigenous art and attracted an international audience ready to acclaim her new and innovative contemporary style.
In this highly dramatic work, colours highlight the varied and changing hues in the life cycle of her country after seasonal change that brings rain to the the dry desert landscape near Alalgura on Utopia Station, west of Delmore Downs.
The thick textured fusion of deep blue, green and pink hues gives a concentrated view of the desert's food sources after rain. Often hidden from view, these seed, fruit, and root vegetables are enormously bountiful. The requirement to understand the life cycles of all bush foods is necessary to the survival of Alyawerre and Anmatjerre people.
The Anooralya Yam is the most important plant in Emily’s custodianship. This hardy and fertile plant provides both a tuber vegetable and a seed bearing flower called Kame (Emily’s tribal name). As the plant dies off above the ground, the yam tuber can be found underground.
This work evokes the flourish of growth that is exceptional and rapid. The dramatic transformation of the desert from bare to abundant is a display of the desert's power. Linked into this is women's ceremonial life called 'awelye' that is based on the belief that they help nurture the desert food sources by assuring future fertile generations.
