Among the most significant of artists in Australia in the twentieth century, Emily Kam Kngwarray belonged to the Anmatyerre people, one of the more than 500 language groups of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander nations. An Anmatyerre Elder, Kngwarray was a steward of women’s Dreaming sites in Alhalkere, in the remote region of Utopia. Dreaming is a cultural framework for understanding the world and its relationship to people, including ancestral histories and stories of the Earth and universe. Kngwarray’s practice was inspired by her role to protect and pass down women’s traditions through storytelling and visual media. In her artistic practice, she painted prolifically on unstretched linen canvases placed on the ground, using a combination of brushes, sticks, and her fingers. Kngwarray’s paintings portray long-standing narratives and symbols of her people and their land, shown through energetic, colorful dots and swaths of color that embody the rhythms of the natural world.

–From the Glenstone Field Guide