Available Artworks
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
My Country - 1995
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
92.0 x 91.5 cm
EST. $20,000 - $25,000
MP #709
Provenance
Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Vic Cat. No. 5386
Ebes Collection, Vic
Signed verso 'Emily'
accompanied by a certificate booklet from Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings and a photo of the artist with the artwork
Reflected in this work is the Anooralya Yam, the most important plant in Emily’s custodianship. This hardy and fertile plant provides both a seed bearing flower called Kame (Emily’s tribal name) and an edible tuber. When plants mature and die off the tubers swell causing the ground to crack. The women of the Eastern Desert can always find them where cracks in the earth’s surface indicate their presence underground.
Emily's application of red and yellow colours in this work highlights the varied and changing hues in the later part of the life cycle of the Anooralya Yam and other food plants found near Alalgura on Utopia Station. From an aerial perspective we see sporadic clustered growth after summer rain. We also look on this exciting work as a water catchment area. The rain falls and water slowly flows along the broad shallow watercourse and replenishes the soakage at Alalgura. The flourish of growth that follows is exceptional and rapid.
Ceremony reinforces, through narrative, the significance of this knowledge, by teaching survival skills and knowledge, basic social codes and obligations to the future generation of Eastern Anmatjerre and Alyawerre women.