Emily Kame Kngwarreye is an Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Central Desert, north-east of Alice Springs. She only began painting at the age of 80, first working in the art of batik, which is a traditional Oceanic fabric printing technique. She then turned to acrylic painting on canvas, often depicting vegetal themes in her paintings, in particular the Yam Dream. 

Her work is imbued with an exceptional energy, recounting the Dreams of which she is the heir and guardian. Emily Kame Kngwarreye is a major figure in contemporary Australian Aboriginal art. A year after her death, in 1997, the Venice Biennale, the Australian Pavilion and the Australian National Museums paid tribute to her with major retrospectives.