My Country 1995 (rotated)

Hundreds of feathery dabs float across a deep field of purple and red in this canvas by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, one of Australia's most beloved Aboriginal artists. She grew up in Utopia, a remote community in the Northern Territory, and did not pick up a paintbrush for canvas until she was in her late seventies. Even with such a late start, she produced thousands of works in only a few years and earned worldwide fame before she passed away in 1996.

The title "My Country" points straight to the heart of her art. Everything Emily painted came from her homeland, an ancestral place called Alhalkere, with its plants, seeds, and sacred sites. Those dotted clusters most likely stand for flowering plants or seeds scattered over the ground, subjects connected to her part in women's ceremonies. Although outsiders often called her work abstract, she never saw it that way. For her, every mark carried real meaning about the land she knew intimately.

Her paintings feel loose and alive, built from layers of color that seem to sway and glow. Critics love to compare her to famous modern abstract artists, yet she had no contact with that world at all. What you see instead is a direct expression of her bond with the earth, and that honesty gives these speckled colors their gentle warmth.