'Big Yam Dreaming' blog by Ali Baker

'Big Yam Dreaming' by Emily Kame Kngwarreye

-Image of ‘Big Yam Dreaming’.

The indigenous art work titled Big Yam Dreaming by artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye is three by eight metres synthetic polymer paint on canvas. This piece was created in 1995.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye “is one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists,” (www.nma.gov.au). Big Yam Dreaming has a black background with white markings, including swirls and never ending lines. It is an extremely large painting where there is no general or repeated shape or symbol in the artwork.

-Image of Emily Kame Kngwarreye.

This painting took only two days to finish. When painting, the artist never “scaled, reworked or sketched, she just knitted the white lines to the very edges of the canvas,” (www.nma.gov.au). If a mistake was made, she would work it into the painting. The artwork seems as if Emily was simply painting what the yam looked like to her without a plan before she started.

The artwork is different and unique. Big Yam Dreaming stands out as it is only created using two shades that form extremely well on the canvas. The work is painted entirely in bold white lines on black, which celebrate the natural increase of atnwelarr (finger yam) at Alhalkere, country sacred to the artist.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye created this piece in her own interpretation of Alhalkere. The endless white lines may represent the veins of the yam, which is a vital food source to the aboriginal people of the desert. “The lines bear a resemblance to the arterial roots of the yam below the ground, which mirror the crazed pattern of cracked earth above caused by tubers when they ripen and expand,” (www.nma.gov.au).

The artwork could be described as a yam dreaming. The black represents the mind and the white lines show the flow of dreams connecting to each other with no end. This artwork is balanced with the meaning and colours relating to each other. The patterns of the cracks in the land were used as inspiration and the black may represent the dry dirt. The white may have been used as a contrast to stand out against the black. The flowing nature of the lines also attracts the viewer’s eye.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye is a very important painter to indigenous history as “it is estimated that she produced over 3000 paintings in the course of her eighty year painting career, an average of one painting per day,” (www.nma.gov.au). As an elder of the aboriginal community all of her paintings deserve to be hung in museums, especially Big Yam Dreaming.

This art piece has a unique meaning to many people and can be interpreted in different ways. Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s brilliant work is important because it was inspired by her aboriginal culture.

Link to video at www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia_the_genius_of_emily_kame_kngwarreye/behind_the_scenes 

Bibliography

National Museum of Australia, Australian Government Agency, viewed 17 May 2015 www.nma.gov.au