Kngwarreye, Emily Kame

▪ 1997

      Australian artist (b. c. 1910, Utopia, Soakage Bore, N.Terr., Australia—d. Sept. 2, 1996, Alice Springs, N.Terr.), took Aboriginal art to a new audience internationally. Although she was in her 70s before she began painting, she was considered one of the country's greatest artists. Kngwarreye grew up in an extremely remote area and was nine years old before she saw a white person. When she was a young woman, she worked as a stockhand at a cattle station on tribal lands. She also was educated in the sacred tribal traditions and became a tribal elder. In the mid-1970s a batik-making program for a local women's group became Kngwarreye's introduction to art, and her talent became apparent in the adaptations of traditional body markings she transferred to silk. When the group began (1988-89) working with acrylics on canvas, she found that a more suitable medium for the bold colour and vigour with which she painted visions of her country, traditions, and myths. Kngwarreye had two one-woman shows in 1990, received a government fellowship in 1992, and had displayed her art in more than 50 exhibitions throughout the world by 1993. Her style shifted over the years, from colourful dots over linear patterns in her early work to bold stripes, often on dark grounds, by the mid-1990s. Her works were eagerly sought by both galleries and private collectors, and she earned a great deal of money, but Kngwarreye continued to live a traditional Aboriginal life and shared her wealth with her kinspeople.

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