Description:

EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE
c. 1915 - 1996
Alhalkere 1994
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Alhalkere is the name of the Country where Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born, the name she held custodianship over for her entire life, and a title that does not describe a place so much as assert an unbroken claim upon it. Her own account of her painting resisted any narrower interpretation: "Arlatyeye (pencil yam); Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard); Ntange (grass seed); Tingu (dingo pup); Ankerre (emu); Intekwe (plant that emus like); Antwerle (green bean) and Kame (yam seed). That's what I paint; whole lot."

A founding member of the Utopia Women's Batik Group since 1977, Kngwarreye came to canvas in 1989 approaching eighty years old. Painted in 1994, this canvas belongs to her high-colourist phase - the same year she made  Earth's Creation, which would go on to set the auction record for an Australian female artist. Her global standing was affirmed most recently by a landmark retrospective at Tate Modern, London, in 2025.

A ground of deep amber gold suffused with warm mauve-violet, the two colours interpenetrating across the entire surface in the flickering atmospheric oscillation that distinguishes her finest work. Mid-left, a concentrated bloom of coral, orange, and cool grey-green erupts from the broader field with an ember-like intensity, the cool note within it giving the passage an unexpected depth, recalling the land's capacity for sudden and complex transformation.

  • Provenance: Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD4132
    Private Collection, acquired from the above

    Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings
  • Dimensions: 122 x 92 cm
  • Medium: synthetic polymer paint on canvas

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