YAM COUNTRY, 1993
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
151.0 x 91.0 cm
inscribed with artist's name and Delmore Gallery
catalogue number verso: 93A07 Emily Kngwarreye
inscribed with title and dated on label attached verso: Yam Country/ January 1993
accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Delmore Gallery, Northern Territory
Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, Northern Territory
William Mora Galleries, Melbourne
Applied Chemicals Collection, Melbourne
Of My Country: Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The Applied Chemicals Collection, Bendigo Art Gallery, 1 - 30 May 1999, and touring various venues throughout Victoria and New South Wales, June 1999 - April 2000
This is Emu Country - called Alalgura. The male emu's role is to look after the emu chicks, to keep them within sight of their home and not beyond their preferred seeds and fruits. These foods include the Anooralya, a long thin yam with a small yellow flower. The random track of the Yam plant underlies the work.
It is often an important and historical ceremony that is triggered by the nature and/or timing of the season that provokes Emily's memory and lasting emotions. In this case, she has painted following Summer rains that are accompanied by the annual ceremonial 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 symbolize the fertile and tough nature of the desert and all its living species.
JANET HOLT
Delmore Downs, Northern Territory