Awelye - Emily Kame Kngwarreye

The network of lines traces the patterns of root growth of the finger yam, Anooralya and celebrates the Yam Dreaming for which Emily was custodian.The lines can also be related to Awelye where the body paint is replicated on the skin for ceremony.

Always linked to Emily’s validity of expression is Awelye, the ceremonial expression that releases the spiritual power that maintains natures’ fertility and hardiness.

Body painting lines are fundamental to the participatory role of women in ceremony. This practise is symbolically linked to this work and helps evoke an atmosphere of ceremony.The belief that good seasons always return, that yam ‘always comes back’, is fundamental to understanding the desert environment and therefore survival. A parallel layer of expression runs with the fundamental understanding of Awelye , that being of basic human nature, understanding it, and abiding by the rules set down by society in order that it too, will survive.