Emily Kame Kngwarreye

owards the end of 1988 at Utopia, an Aboriginal Australian homeland north-east of Alice Springs, a women’s group specialising in batik was offered acrylic paint and linen on which to work for the first time. The brainchild of Rodney Gooch, manager of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) shop, and Sydney gallerist Christopher Hodges, exhibition was devised so the women — all experienced image-makers — could continue their artistic practice across the peak of the hot desert summer. The collection of canvases, a month or so later, proved to be a watershed moment in the