Emily Kame Kngwarreye :: biography at Design and Art Australia Online

Emily Kame Kngwarreye b. 1910

Artist

One of the best known desert artists and a senior woman in Utopia (NT), Kngwarreye's work is distinctive for its expressive abstract style. The recipient of awards such as the Australian Artists Creative Fellowship (1992), her work is recognised internationally and is included in major public and private collections in Australia and overseas.

Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1994

Name

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Birth date

1910

Death date

1996

Death place

None

Gender

Female

Roles

Artist

Residence

Utopia, NT

Other Occupation

Stockhand

Active Period

1988-
1977-

Languages

English

Is Indigenous

Yes

Heritage Country

Alhalkere

Dreaming

Emu
Wild Orange
Sand Goanna

Initial Record Data Source

Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary

Biography

Born c.1910 at Alhalkere (Soakage Bore) Utopia Station, Emily is an Eastern Anmatyerre speaker and senior artist at Utopia. Her Country is Alhalkere and her Dreamings include Sand Goanna, Wild Orange, and Emu. Emily first saw white people as a young girl aged about nine. She worked in her younger days as a stockhand on pastoral properties in this area (see The Art of Utopia, M. Boulter) at a time when Aboriginal women on the stations were usually only employed as domestics – suggesting the forceful independence of her personality. Emily was the adopted daughter of Jacob Jones, a very important lawman in the Alyawarre community, and a leader in the women’s ceremonial business at Utopia.

From the time she painted her first canvas for A Summer Project 1988-9 , the work of Emily Kame Kngwarreye has received widespread acclaim and recognition. Emily found in acrylics and canvas a medium more suited to the bold immediacy of her style than the more laborious production processes of batik, in which she had been working for the preceding decade and exhibiting with the Utopia women in exhibitions in Australia and abroad since 1977. Her technique is highly individual with under-drawings covered by layers of dots. Her pleasure in working as an artist is reflected in her powerful colours and her energetic and expressive compositions. In 1990, Emily’s work was shown in two highly successful solo shows in Sydney, as well as the Art Gallery of NSW’s Abstraction show. Later that year she participated in the CAAMA/Utopia artists-in-residence program at the ICA, Perth. (Reference: Batty, P. & Sheridan, N., Utopia Artist in Residence Project [Holmes à Court Foundation, Perth, 1990]). Several more solo shows have followed: Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne (1990, 1991) and Utopia Art, Sydney (1991, 1992). Her work was rapidly acquired by major public and private collections in Australia and overseas and is keenly sought after by other buyers. In three years, she has been represented in 48 group exhibitions around Australia and the world, including Ireland – A Picture Story , Royal Hibernian Gallery, Dublin; Russia – Aboriginal Paintings from the Desert , Union Gallery, Moscow, 1991 and touring St Petersburg, Ukraine, Minsk Byelorussia, Riga Latvia; USA – Contemporary Aboriginal Art , Harvard University and touring USA and Australia; Japan – Aboriginal Art from Australia , National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1992 and Crossroads Toward a New Reality , National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo etc.

She is the most lauded painter of the Utopia art movement to date, and one of the best known of the desert artists, painting with an undiminished energy which belies her years. In 1992 she was awarded an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship. In 1993 she exhibited in the Joan and Peter Clemenger Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary Australian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria and featured in Aratjara – Art of the First Australians , touring Dusseldorf, London and other European Galleries.

Writers:: Johnson, Vivien
Date written:: 1994
Last updated:: 2011

associate of

Jacob William Jones

1816

Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Draughtsman)

associate of

Ada Petyarre Bird

1930

associate of

Julius Bokor

1943

Artist (Industrial / Product Designer), Architect (Architect / Interior Architect / Landscape Architect), Artist (Draughtsman), Artist (Painter)

associate of

Dale Jones-Evans

1955

Artist (Installation Artist), Architect (Architect / Interior Architect / Landscape Architect), Artist (Video Artist), Artist (Theatre / Film Designer), Artist (Performance Artist), Artist (Mixed Media Artist), Artist (Industrial / Product Designer), Artist (Sculptor), Artist (Draughtsman)

associate of

Lily Kngwarreye

1937

Artist (Textile Artist / Fashion Designer), Artist (Painter)

sibling of

Lily Kngwarreye

1937

Artist (Textile Artist / Fashion Designer), Artist (Painter)

associate of

Louis Pwerle

1938

Artist (Painter)

associate of

Judy Watson

1959

Artist, Artist (Draughtsman), Artist (Installation Artist), Artist (Digital Artist/Designer), Artist (Mixed Media Artist), Artist (Printmaker), Artist (Sculptor), Artist (Painter)

associate of