Rebecca Jones

Rebecca Jones is an emerging artist from Utopia, an Indigenous homelands region some 240km north-east of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). She is the daughter of acclaimed artist Jeannie Mills. Jeannie’s mother is artist Dolly Mills, and the niece of senior Anmatyerre elder Greeny Purvis Petyarre.

The significant cultural and artistic legacy of her homeland and lineage is what inspired Rebecca to paint. Like her mother, Rebecca paints the pencil yam, a creeping vine with heart-shaped leaves, and edible tubers that grow in the soil. The yam is cherished for it's nutritional value, and Indigenous women perform song and ceremony to pay homage to the spirit of the plant in the hope it will continue to provide for them.

The repetition of strokes is representative of the yam, while the white dots in between are the yam seeds (kame).