Emily Kam Kngwarray

Painted at Delmore Downs Station, Northern Territory, for the Delmore Gallery in 1993

Australian Private Collection, acquired from the above in 1993

As much as Kngwarray’s paintings may be viewed as a direct response to physical state of the landscape that surrounded her, this work was painted after a period of relatively little rainfall yet its highly keyed chromatic scale suggests a natural beauty and a bounty of resources. The underground meandering tracery that binds the composition is overlaid with fields of dotting that form a patchwork of colour, each section defined by a cluster of brush marks in one or more dominant hues. Here and there, lines of dots escape the confines of the subterranean boundaries to create a sense of movement across the canvas. The painting is an exemplar of the art historian Terry Smith’s summation of Kngwarray's paintings of the period, displaying a "(f)luidity of form and colour [that] dominates Kngwarreye’s art throughout 1993."¹

The year proved to be one of the most productive in the short span of Kngwarray's public career. Apart from three solo exhibitions at her representative commercial galleries in Sydney and Melbourne, a major series of paintings–The Alhalker Suite– was selected for the prestigious Joan and Peter Clemenger Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria, and Kngwarray featured in the first Australian Heritage Commission National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, and Aratjara, Art of the First Australians: Traditional and contemporary works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, that toured Europe, opening at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and travelled to the Hayward Gallery, London, the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

¹ Smith, Terry, ‘Kngwarreye Woman Abstract painter’ in Isaacs, J., Smith, J. Ryan et al., Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Roseville East, N.S.W., 1998, p.35.