Yam Dreaming

By Tess Kenner

Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996) is one of Australia’s most significant artists.

Emily grew up in a remote desert area known as Utopia, 230 kilometers north-east of Alice Springs, Australia. Acrylic painting was introduced to Utopia in 1988, and it was at this time, when Emily was nearly 80 years old, that she began to paint. In an exhibition of Aboriginal artists’ work organized by by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, Emily’s paintings received significant attention from critics.

For most of her life, Emily had limited contact with the world outside her Aboriginal community. Her painting was inspired by what she knew: her dreaming, her cultural life as an Aboriginal elder and the natural world that surrounded her.

Emily painted many works about the yam plant, a primary source of food for the Aboriginal people. Like many Aboriginal artists, Emily often sang the songs about  Yam Dreaming while painting.

Yam Dreaming, 1994.

Emily shifted her style from dots to gestural brush strokes that echoed the lines painted on women’s breasts and shoulders for traditional ceremonial performances.

Yam Dreaming, 1995.

Emily produced her work at an astounding rate; it is estimated that she painted over 3,000 works over the course of her eight-year career, an average of one painting per day. Emily completed Big Yam Dreaming in just two days.  Without preliminary sketching, Emily painted sitting cross-legged on the three-by-eight meter canvas, working her way from the center to it’s edges. Given Emily’s technique of painting by sitting on the floor, her works have no prescribed orientation, except in a few cases.

Big Yam Dreaming, 1995.

The demand for Emily’s paintings meant that she felt certain stresses as a member of her community. Emily’s painting provided income for her whole community; at her old age, Emily gave up chances of retirement in order to provide for her kin.

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