EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE - SUMMER BUSINESS II

 EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE
SUMMER BUSINESS II,  1993
150 x 90 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Canvas
 
PROVENANCE
Utopia, NT
Delmore Gallery, NT Cat Nu. 93D019Private Collection, NSWCooee Art, NSW 
 
STORY
This is Emu Country - called Alalgura. The male emu's role is to look after the emu chicks and keep the, in sight of their home and not beyond their preferred seeds and fruits. These foods include the Indoorkwa, a small purple-blue plum, and the Anooralya, a long , thin yam with a small yellow flower. The random track of the Emu grazing across the landscape underlie the work. It is often an important historical ceremony that is triggered by the nature and/or timing that provokes Emily's memory and lasting emotions. In this case, she has painted following summer rains that are accompanied by the annual ceremonies season. She also believes that through ceremony (awelye) and her belief in the power of the desert, she can help provoke the desert's hidden energy into a new and bountiful season, and consequent crop of bush tucker. The young girls who inherit custodial responsibility for the desert foods,learn moral and social codes through the stories of their ancestors. Providing these codes are followed, and fortune has it, these girls will raise a family and symbolise the fertile and tough nature of the desert and of all its living species.Jane Holt