Emily Kam Kngwarray

Anwerlarr (pencil yam), 1990 was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia from Kngwarray's first solo exhibition. It bears a striking similarity to Untitled, 1990 from the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection.
In this work, the pencil yam motifs are almost obscured between the lime green ground and overdotting Kngwarray painted in shades of red.

The stippled works of this time, including Ntang Altyerr (seeds of abundance), 1990 and Song of the emu, 1991, are larger in scale compared to earlier paintings. As recurs throughout Kngwarray’s work, the iteration of an element from her portfolio of iconography prevails. In these elegant paintings, scaled to encompass the breadth of Kngwarray's subject, distinctive motifs such as the anwerlarr (pencil yam) tubers and emu footprints are submerged or disappear completely. Billowing fields of dots expand or contract across the surface of the canvas. The pinpoints of colour evoke the profusion of seeds.

In these impressionistic works, Kngwarray’s expanding toolbox of art materials also becomes evident in the scale and shape of the painting stretchers, a polychromatic palette and a range of brushes that were trimmed to achieve the desired painterly effect.