Jedda Purvis Kngwarreye / Kame – Yam Seed Dreaming (20029)

Jedda Purvis Kngwarreye is an Anmatyerr artist born in 1969 near Boundary Bore in the Utopia region of Central Australia. She is a proud owner of Alhalkere Country and the daughter of respected artist and senior Anmatyerr elder Greeny Purvis Petyarre and Kathleen Kemarre. Jedda has three sisters, Maureen, Judy and Jennifer Purvis.

Jedda belongs to one of the most significant artistic families to emerge from Utopia. Her father Greeny was the eldest nephew of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, with Greeny's father, Alhalkere Jack, being Emily's brother. Within the family's kinship system, Emily is remembered by Jedda and her sisters as their grandmother. Jedda grew up surrounded by the cultural knowledge, ceremonies and painting traditions of Alhalkere Country that have remained central to her own practice.

Jedda's artistic career began as a young woman during the celebrated Utopia batik movement. In 1988 she participated in Utopia: A Picture Story, a landmark project involving 88 silk batiks by the Utopia Women's Batik Group. The complete collection was acquired by the Holmes à Court Collection and subsequently toured internationally. Jedda's batik depicted a bush scene in which men, women and children gathered at camp, sharing stories while other members of the group hunted emu and perentie. Individual episodes were brought together to create a larger picture of life on Country.

The batik movement was followed by the introduction of acrylic painting on canvas during the groundbreaking A Summer Project 1988-89, which helped establish Utopia as an important centre of contemporary Aboriginal art. Jedda also worked in printmaking and in 1990 produced an untitled woodcut for the important Utopia Suite. Impressions of this work are now held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.

A recurring subject in Jedda's paintings is Kame, the Yam Seed Dreaming inherited through her father's Alhalkere family. Closely associated with this story is Atnwelarr, the pencil yam, an important plant of Alhalkere Country. The pencil yam grows as a trailing creeper, producing green leaves and yellow flowers above the ground, with long edible roots growing beneath the surface. Its seeds, roots and regeneration are associated with important cultural knowledge and ceremony.

Jedda's paintings frequently evoke the spreading growth of the yam plant through flowing lines, radiating forms, layered colour and intricate fields of dots. Her compositions are highly individual, combining the stories and knowledge of Alhalkere Country with a distinctive contemporary style.

In recent years Jedda has also played an important role in maintaining and sharing the artistic and cultural legacy of her family. She was among the women of Alhalkere and Anangker Countries who contributed their knowledge and reflections to the National Gallery of Australia's major Emily Kam Kngwarray project, with the voices of family members helping to place Emily Kame Kngwarreye's work within the Country, culture and relationships from which it emerged.

COLLECTIONS

• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA
• Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, QLD
• Holmes à Court Collection, Western Australia
• Mbantua Gallery Collection, Alice Springs, NT

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

• 2025 - We Call it Urapuntja, JGM Gallery, London, UK
• 2024 - Barkly Groundswell, cbOne Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
• 2004 - Mbantua Gallery USA Exhibition, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
• 2002 - Art and Soul Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
• 2002 - The Cove Gallery, Portland, Oregon, USA
• 2002 - Urban Wine Works, Portland, Oregon, USA
• 2002 - Mary's Woods, Portland, Oregon, USA
• 1990 - Utopia: A Picture Story, international touring exhibition of silk batiks from the Holmes à Court Collection, Ireland and Scotland
• 1989 - Utopia Women's Paintings: The First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project 1988-89, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW

A central theme in Jedda Purvis Kngwarreye's paintings is Kame, the Yam Seed Dreaming passed down through her father's family and connected to Alhalkere Country. Kame refers to the seeds associated with the pencil yam, while Atnwelarr is the pencil yam plant itself.

The pencil yam is a trailing desert plant that produces green leaves and yellow flowers above the ground, while long slender edible roots develop beneath the surface. It is an important traditional food, and its growth, seeds and regeneration form part of the cultural knowledge held by the women of Alhalkere Country.

In this painting, Jedda creates a richly layered interpretation of the Kame - Yam Seed Dreaming. The large radiating forms represent the spreading growth of the pencil yam and its underground root system, while the circular forms depict waterholes across Country. Thousands of fine dots represent the yam seeds, Kame, scattered throughout the composition, from which new growth emerges.

Soft greens, golds, pinks, purples, blues and earthy reds move across the painting, creating a strong sense of growth and movement. The root systems spread and overlap across the canvas, linking the waterholes and seeds within a continuous field of Country and reinforcing the cycle of germination, growth and regeneration.

Rather than representing the pencil yam as a literal botanical image, Jedda brings together the seeds, underground root systems, waterholes and Country in her own distinctive visual language. The painting celebrates the continuing life and renewal of the Yam Dreaming across Alhalkere Country.