Bernadine Johnson Kemarre / Pencil Yam Dreaming (BJ317)

Bernadine Johnson Kemarre was born in 1974 at Ltyentye Apurte, also known as Santa Teresa, approximately 80 kilometres east of Alice Springs in Central Australia. She spent her early years growing up in community before later attending school in Alice Springs.

Bernadine comes from a strong artistic family connected to the Central Desert region. Her extended family includes well-known artists Abie Loy Kemarre and Josie Petrick Kemarre, while artist Anna Price Petyarre is her sister-in-law.

From a young age, Bernadine learned about the important Dreaming stories, women’s ceremonies and native food plants of her Country. These traditions continue to inspire her paintings and connect her work to the knowledge passed down through generations of Aboriginal women.

Bernadine’s artworks are characterised by flowing fields of bush leaves, fine dot work and both earthy and vibrant colour palettes. The repeated forms radiate across the canvas, creating a strong sense of movement, energy and growth.

Bernadine lives with her husband, Steven, and their children at Napperby Station in the Northern Territory. Through her paintings, she continues to celebrate the plants, stories and cultural knowledge of Central Australia.

In this painting, Bernadine Johnson Kemarre depicts the Pencil Yam Dreaming, an important bush food story connected to the knowledge of Country, seasonal growth and gathering. The pencil yam is a trailing desert plant that produces long, slender edible tubers beneath the ground.

Bernadine fills the canvas with rows of softly blended colour, creating a rich and rhythmic pattern that suggests the pencil yam spreading across Country. The delicate white dots represent the seeds, carried throughout the composition and giving rise to new growth. Greens, ochres, reds and blues reflect the changing colours of the desert landscape, while the repeated forms convey abundance and the continuing cycle of growth, collection and renewal.

Through this intricate design, Bernadine celebrates both the pencil yam and the cultural knowledge surrounding this important plant, passed down through generations.