Emily Kame Kngwarreye completed this highly symbolic work in 1996 - the final year of her long rich life. The painting was commissioned by the Chalmers family who had lived on Utopia for many years and had known Emily all their life. In a poignant moment when she had almost completed the work, Emily looked up and gestured over the faintly obscured dark image to the right of the painting saying:

'This me, all finish now- and (gesturing over the crimson large ‘dump-dump’ dots) this, my life - over now.'

And indeed it was – Emily passed away shortly afterwards.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996), Anmatyerre visual artist. Kngwarreye’s art is inextricably linked with her country, Alhalkere: ‘whole lot, that’s all, whole lot. Awelye (my dreaming), Arlatyeye (pencil yam), Ankerthe (mountain devil lizard), Ntange (grass seed), Tingu (dingo puppy), Ankerre (emu), Intekwe (small plant-favourite food of emu), Atnwerle (green bean) and Kame (yam seed). That’s what I paint, whole lot’

From an interview with Rodney Gooch translated by Kathleen Petyarre, 1990.

Kngwarreye grew up in a traditional way, learning her responsibilities to her country which inspired her art. Alkhalkere was indeed the subject for all her art; the veils of dots, the bold striped Awelye (body paint) or the underlying pattern of landscape all these forms are part of the whole. ….Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s abstract images transcended her culture to
speak to us all. This was her great gift. She showed us a new way to look at the world.

Edited extract from The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Kleinert and Neale.