Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist of the Anmatyerre people who took up painting on canvas only in her late seventies, after decades of practicing traditional batik and ceremonial body and sand painting, and went on to produce an enormous body of abstract work in under a decade before her death. Her paintings, built from dense fields of dots, lines, and gestural color drawn from her deep knowledge of Anmatyerre ceremonial designs and the ecology of her native Country, particularly the yam plant central to her Dreaming, are credited with reshaping international understanding of contemporary Aboriginal art as a living abstract tradition rather than solely an ethnographic curiosity. She is now widely regarded as one of the most significant Australian artists of the twentieth century.
Facts
Partially Attested
Birth YearThe source gives the birth year only as circa 1910; the exact year is not recorded. Active From YearThis is the year she began painting on canvas; she practised batik and ceremonial art earlier, so her wider artistic activity began before 1988. BirthplaceAlhalker, Utopia Homelands 1 Emily Kame Kngwarreye
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Source Emily Kame Kngwarreye (Wikipedia)
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1. Emily Kame Kngwarreye (Wikipedia)
Early life, sentence on her birth, year
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born c.1910 in Alhalker in the Utopia Homelands
Death section, sentence on her death, year
Kngwarreye died in Alice Springs in September 1996.
Lead sentence, description of her nationality and community
was an Aboriginal Australian (Anmatyerr) artist from Alhalker, in the Sandover region of the Northern Territory.
Early life, sentence on her birth, place
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born c.1910 in Alhalker in the Utopia Homelands
Death section, sentence on her death, place
Kngwarreye died in Alice Springs in September 1996.
Career section, sentence on her first canvas painting
Kngwarreye began to paint on canvas in the summer of 1988, with a painting project initiated by CAAMA Shop in association with Utopia Art Sydney.
Lead section
One of the world's most significant contemporary painters to emerge in the twentieth century, Kngwarreye practised in batik and painting on canvas, creating art that embodied her detailed knowledge of the places she lived in throughout her life.
Practices: Painting, Article text
One of the world's most significant contemporary painters to emerge in the twentieth century, Kngwarreye practised in batik and painting on canvas, creating art that embodied her detailed knowledge of the places she lived in throughout her life.
View the SourceWikidata: Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Wikidata Q453890, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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