Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarrey

Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarreye is a significant senior artist from Utopia living at Mosquito Bore, approximately 250 kilometres north east of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. Elizabeth is one of the custodians of her country, Anangkere, along with her artist and senior law man husband, the late Cowboy Louis Pwerle. Elizabeth's family lineage is one of artistic prestige. Elizabeth is the daughter of the late artist Nancy Petyarre, one of the seven Petyarre sisters, several of whom are Australia's most significant and celebrated artists, responsible for the Utopian art movement as we know it today. Through the complex Aboriginal kinship system, Elizabeth is also the granddaughter of one of the most revered Utopian artists, Emily Kame Kngwarreye. From her enviable artistic pedigree, Elizabeth has undoubtedly inherited innate painting skills with few artists painting with her level of refinement. Through thousands of tiny rhythmic strokes, Elizabeth depicts the movement of the pencil yam seeds (kame) as they are thrown into the wind to be re-harvested. Elizabeth paints some of the yam seeds larger than others indicating a plumpness if there has been rain. She also employs colour to depict the yam seeds and leaves that have dried out and those that are still supple. In some of Elizabeth's more recent paintings, she has incorporated a topography of her country amongst the yam seeds showing the water coursing through after large rains give vitality to the pencil yam. Elizabeth shares the 'one country' with the late, great Emily who also painted the yam. Emily's name "Kame" translates to yam seed and Elizabeth remembers returning from school to find Emily singing songs about this prized food.