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"My
Country"
69 cm x 122 cm
Acrylic on Linen 1994
$Aud 30,000 + GST 10% for sales
in Australia
export price $Aud 30,000 SOLD
Dreaming
Emily’s later works used layer upon
layer of coloured dots, dabs and lines of minutely varying hues.
Originally her paintings started with specific subjects that depicted
designs from body paintings, images or Dreaming maps showing important
sites. Due to the secret and sacred nature of the subject matter she
found herself falling foul of other elders in the group. Now her
paintings have a different vision.
Emily was asked to explain what she
paints and she said, "Whole
lot, that's the whole lot. Awelye (my Dreamings), Alatyeye (pencil yam),
Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard), Ntange (grass seed), Tingu (a
Dreamtime pup), Ankerre (emu), Intekwe (a favourite food of emus, a
small plant), atnwerle (green bean), and Kame (yam seed). That's what I
paint; the whole lot big mob story."
Emily Kame
Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye has been the greatest single sensation to emerge from the
entire ‘school’ of desert art. Her dominance of this art scene was almost
contained within the decade of the 90’s. She died at Alice Springs in 1996. In
an obituray published by the Sydney Morning Herald it was claimed,
Kngwarreye’s
work has been compared with that of Monet, Matisse and Renoir but it was
distinctly Australian, though different from most Aboriginal art, jumping
barriers between black and white perceptions of the landscape to attract
international attention.
As is the case with most Aboriginal painters her works are a response to the
land of her birth, Alhalkere, north-east of Alice Springs. She paints the
spiritual forces which imbue the country with contours of the landscape,
cycles of seasons, the flow of flooding waters and the patterns of seeds and
the shape of plants. Emily’s major dreaming was the yam. Her name
‘Kame’ means ‘yam flower’. She was a ceremonial leader and very
active in land rights movement. She played a decisive role in the return of
Utopia Station to her people in 1979.
Born
cl910 at Soakage Bore,
Utopia Station, Emily was an Eastern Anmatyerre speaker. Her ‘art’
career began in 1977 when the women of the Utopia area were taught to design
and dye batik prints on silks provided by white art advisors. These proved
to be both popular and productive and gave the community women an
opportunity to earn some money and to come together in a meaningful way on a
regular basis. Emily’s batiks were much sought after and when the group
began painting with acrylic paint on canvas in 1988-89 her success continued
in that medium.
Her
first canvas, ‘Emu Woman’ 1988-89, was reproduced on the cover of ‘The
Summer Project’ catalogue for
the exhibition at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney in 1989. Following
this her work was shown in two solo exhibitions in Sydney during 1990 and
she was also featured in the Art Gallery of NSW Exhibition,
“Abstraction”. Throughout the 1990’s she continued to develop her
personal vision of the land and its meaning. She painted with a vibrancy and
intensity which was nurtured by her lifelong association with her totems
(Yam, Yam Flower, Emu), land and
beliefs.
Her
fresh, dynamic and distinctive approach to painting meant that demand was
high for her work and in the years prior to her death in September 1996,
Emily became the greatest phenomenon ever in the history of Australian art.
Here was an 80 years old lady from deep in the Australian outback re-writing
the art record books. In the process she created a stream of new styles (10
in 8 years) each of which appealed to her growing band of admirers. Dealers
clamoured for her work and in 1992 the Federal Government awarded her a
healthy financial arts scholarship so that she would continue to paint.
Amazing claims were made about her: “She is probably the highest paid
woman in the country”, was the way one commentator summed up her earning
capacity.
Emily’s
creativity has been matched by very few, black or white, male or female, in
the history of Australian art. Indeed she has made a major contribution to
what will be seen in hindsight as Australia’s “Golden Age” of
Aboriginal art. Together with artists such as Rover Thomas, Clifford Possum,
Turkey Tolson, Billy Stockman, Yirrawalla and David Malangi, Emily has
secured, in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, a place for Australia in the world
view of contemporary art.
She
made a number of works on a monumental scale, and
one of these, the colourful ‘Alhalkere Suite’ from 1993 was
purchased by the Australian National Gallery, Canberra. The suite is
comprised of twenty two canvasses each measuring 90 x 120cms.
The largest of her single works is “Big Yam Dreaming” 1995, which
measures an enormous 291.1 x 801.8cms. This work, a gift of Donald and Janet
Holt of Delmore Downs, Northern Territory, is now part of the collection of
the National Gallery of Victoria. The Holts were instrumental in encouraging
Emily to paint on canvas from 1989 onwards. Another who played a
significant part in Emily’s painting career was Alice Springs gallery
proprietor, Michael Hollow. When she painted ‘in town’, Emily invariably
painted for Michael at his ‘Aboriginal Desert Art’ gallery in Todd Mall.
Some of her most accomplished works were produced there where the best of
materials, fresh paints and tender loving care were readily and always
available. At the time of Emily’s funeral Michael was at hand to
make arrangements and to provide comfort for her family during their sorrow.
Reviewing the major retrospective exhibition which was mounted two
years after her death, John McDonald made an insightful claim. He wrote,
‘Surely Kngwarreye should be recognised as a major contemporary artist,
regardless of ethnicity ….’ This
consideration is one which applies now to many Aboriginal painters,
especially those of the younger generation. They would like to be known as
‘contemporary painters’ rather than ‘Aboriginal painters’.
When
asked what her paintings were about Emily would usually reply,
“Everything, the whole lot”. By this she meant that the works
encompassed notions about body painting, yam dreaming, emu dreaming and her
country. They were after all, inseparable. When asked how long had she been
painting she would reply, ‘all my life’. And by this she meant that for
as long as she could remember she had participated in body painting rituals
with the women of her extended family. Emily preferred the simple ‘bush’
life to life in Alice Springs but was able to produce the highest quality
paintings in either situation.
Discussing
Emily’s paintings and career the Australian National Gallery Curator Wally
Caruana has written,
The paintings are not the daubings of an 'untutored' artist acting purely on intuition; the term has
been applied often in the press to hype up the phenomenon which is
Kngwarreye. Intuitive no doubt these works are; but it is an intuition
founded on decades of making art for private purposes, of drawing in the
soft earth, of painting on people's bodies in ritual or, in the late l970s,
of painting on the bodies of the Utopia women as they successfully presented
their claims to their land in legal proceedings.
One may deduce that Emily’s work was indeed about, ‘the whole lot’.
The success and attention that came to her through her painting gave Emily a
distinctive status and importance within her own community.
Her works are now represented in major public and private collections
throughout Australia and in many such collections throughout the world.
©
Jinta Desert Art 2001
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