What is Yam Dreaming?
Yam Dreaming is a widely painted subject among artists from Utopia, north-east of Alice Springs. In the work of Alyawarre artist Jeannie Mills Pwerle it centres on the Anaty, the desert yam or bush potato.
The Story
Utopia is home to Anmatyerr and Alyawarre people, and bush yams have long been an important food in this country. Several different plants are called yams in English. The Anaty (Ipomoea costata), also known as the desert yam, bush potato or rock morning glory, grows on sandy and rocky soils and spinifex plains. It has large purple-pink flowers and edible tubers that taste much like sweet potato. The pencil yam is a different plant with long, thin roots, and it also appears in Utopia painting.
For the families who hold them, yam Dreaming stories are more than a record of a food source. They connect people to particular country and to awelye, women's ceremony, and the right to paint a yam story is passed down through family.
What the Paintings Show
Yam Dreaming paintings vary greatly from artist to artist. Some show the network of roots and tubers spreading beneath the ground. Others focus on the parts of the plant above it: the leaves, the flowers and the seeds.
Jeannie Mills Pwerle
Jeannie Mills Pwerle is an Alyawarre artist from Utopia, born in 1965. She inherited the Anaty (Bush Yam) Dreaming from her mother, Dolly Mills Petyarre. Her paintings mainly depict the flowers and seeds of the plant, built up from elongated strokes that each carry two or three colours. She is a great-niece of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, one of the most celebrated artists to come from Utopia.
To learn more, read our guides to the Dreaming and Aboriginal dot painting.
Browse Bush Yam paintings in our Jeannie Mills Pwerle collection.
Art by Farquhar is a member of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia.