Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Emu Dreaming Soakage

31
votes

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Emu Dreaming Soakage

Code: 7934
Medium: synthetic polymer on linen
Size: 150 x 120 cm
Price: $ POA

This work is seen as a water catchment area which we can expect to be more productive in an arid landscape.Water collects and slowly flows and forms a watercourse that replenishes the significant soakage called Alalgura in Utopia.The random dot work shows that rain has fallen.We see the sporadic profusion of plants in different stages of maturity.

This is the country that fattens the Emu, a most highly soought source of energy and protein in traditional times.This is where the Emu Dreaming came to and travelled from.This was an important historical ceremony triggered by the nature and timing of the season provoking Emily’s memory and lasting emotions.

Emily’s fantastic broad range of red,greens,yellow,blues and purple represents the most important custodianship,the Anooralya (finger yam) and nterkwe (bush plum).These hardy and fertile plants provide both a tuber vegetable, and a se-bearing flower called Kame (Emily’s tribal name) and the purple plum.Other colours reflect the time of season when bush flowers flourish.
Learning the life cycle of these plants is as vital to survival in the bush as is understanding the human life cycle and its needs.ceremony or Awelye, asserts through narrative, tthe significance of this knowledge. As well , it teaches basic social codes and obligations. The responsibility for carrying on the teaching is given to a select few with status within the clan group. Emily, as the most senior woman custodian of the Alalgura lead her Awelye as a way to impart her knowledge to her family’s descendants. She also believed that the spiritual power of Awelye maintained fertility and abundance.

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