“Emily's lined 'yam' style is one of her most minimal and one which she chose to paint throughout much of the last year of her life. In this landmark painting, Kame Yam Awelye, Emily focuses on the dense underground growth of the atnulare yam tuber, expanding, cracking the dry red earth and readying itself for harvest. The light, almost frenetic application of paint invokes the rhythm of performative awelye (women’s ceremony), the lines themselves arcs of acre smoothed across women’s torsos. The painting’s intensity of colour represents the seasonal changes of Alhalkere’s flora. The combination of these layers of significance distill Emily’s ‘whole lot’ into one visual lexicon.

Kame Yam Awelye was painted less than a month before Emily's passing in Alice Springs on September 3rd, 1996. It is one of the last works in which she used multiple colours, and arguably her last great painting partially due to this fact. The light, at times wispy application of paint is characteristic of her final paintings as her strength began to fade. Despite being urged by her immediate family and Janet Holt to rest and not to paint, every few days Emily would ask for a canvas. The beauty of these final paintings is remarkable considering Emily's health. Perhaps in these last days, the great artist and elder wished to bid farewell to her country in the particularly spectacular visual language she had created to illustrate the extraordinary layers of her 'whole lot' to the world.” © Delmore Gallery