Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Delmore Gallery, Northern Territory
The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands

The accompanying Delmore Gallery documentation reads: 'This is Emu Country - called Alalgura. Custodians of this country learn that the male emu's role is to look after the emu chicks and keep them in sight of their home and not beyond their preferred seeds and fruits. These foods include the Anooralya, a long, thin yam with a small yellow flower. They also include the "Ntwerke", or bush plum that can only be eaten when purple.

It is often an important historical ceremony that is triggered by the nature and/or timing of the season that provokes Emily's memory and lasting emotions. In this case, she has painted when summer storms tease the country, and which are usually accompanied by the annual ceremonial season. She also believes that through ceremony ("awelye") and her belief in the power of the desert, she can help provoke the desert's hidden energy into a new and bountiful season, and consequent crop of bush tucker. The young girls who inherit custodial responsibility for the desert foods, learn moral and social codes through the stories of their ancestors who had the same responsibilities as well. Providing these codes are followed, and fortune has it, these girls will raise a family and symbolise the fertile and tough nature of the desert and of all its living species.'

This painting is accompanied by documentation from Delmore Gallery