Emily Kame Kngwarreye circa 1910-1996 UNTITLED

Painted at Delmore Downs Station, Northern Territory in June, 1990 (catalogue number 0L05)
Delmore Gallery via Alice Springs
Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Alice Springs
Private Collection, Maryland, USA

There is a very small area of frayed canvas in the lower left corner. Otherwise the paint surface is stable and the overall condition sound. The paint surface is stable and the overall condition is sound. The painting sits within a timber frame which has a gold leaf facing and a backing board.
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Cf. For paintings in a similar style created about the same time, see Yam tracking, 1990, and Emu all over, 1990, in J. Isaacs, T. Smith. J. Ryan et al., Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Sydney: Craftsman House, 1998, pp.52 and 53, plates 9 and 10 respectively (illus.).

Once Kngwarreye commenced painting on canvas in late 1988, she quickly developed a method of painting that relied on the free-flowing meandering line based on the pattern of the spread of the roots of the yam plant underground as the visual and metaphorical compositional foundation for her paintings. This design and countless variations upon it would either dissolve into fields of colour or become the graphic centrepieces of later works. This early painting relates to the dry period of the year when the root of the yam plant lays dormant underground. According to the accompanying Delmore Gallery certificate, the dotting represents the desert floor, covered in yam leaves and flowers, as well as the rich, dark ripe fruit of the bush plum, a food favoured by emus, thus making the connection between the female Yam ancestors and the ancestral Emu.

This work is sold with an accompanying certificate which reads in part: 'In this instance, it is the "alatji", or wild yam, whose form underlies this work. In a dry time, the yam liew [sic] underground waiting to be either harvested or rejuvenated by rain. Where the lines connect, is the plant's centre from which growth erupts. These points also represent the holes where the women dig for the potato-like vegetable. The background dot-work represents the yam leaves and flowers, mixed with the dark ripe fruit of the Bush Plum - the favoured fruit of the mythological emu, who favoured the company of the Yam Women'.