Emily Pwerleʼs country is Atnwengerrp and her language is Anmatyerre and Alyawarr. She is in her late 80s, possibly born in 1922 (no records exist) and lives in Irrultja, a tiny settlement in Utopia of about 100 people.
She has had little exposure to western culture and only picked up a paintbrush for the first time in 2004. Sister of the late Minnie Pwerle, Emily Pwerleʼs extended family are all artists: Barbara Weir, Aileen and Betty Mpetyane. She started painting professionally with her sisters Galya and Molly in collaboration with Minnie Pwerle. The sisters had an instant response to applying paint onto canvas, developing expressions of their dreamings that have been passed down from generation to generation.
Pwerle paints ʻAwelye Atnwengerrpʼ, meaning womenʼs ceremony, which is depicted by a series of lines and symbols, often criss-crossed patterns that are layered across the canvas with colours that are explosive, colourful and energetic.
The patterns represent the designs painted on women's bodies during bush tucker ceremonies in Atnwengerrp. Her breast designs, with their straight lined patterns and beautiful use of colour, may superficially remind one of Minnie Pwerleʼs well-known paintings, yet Emily Pwerleʼs are different again. In her works, the body painting designs are dense, they jostle for space, almost fighting their way across the canvas, as though they were about to break from their rectangular restraints and explode forth in a riot of colour and pattern.