Renowned Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray created compelling, powerful works that reflect her extraordinary life as a senior Anmatyerre woman from the Utopia region of Australia.
One of the world’s most significant painters to emerge in the late 20th century, her lived experience and spiritual engagement with her homelands was translated into vibrant batiks and later into monumental paintings on canvas. Discover rich textiles, paintings, film and audio elements that embody the majestic scope of Kngwarray’s Country and ancestral heritage.
Kngwarray was in her late 70s when she began painting in earnest. For the next eight years until her death, she painted over 3,000 canvases – roughly one per day – creating timeless art that encapsulates the wisdom, experience and authority she gained throughout her life.
Created in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), this will be the first large-scale presentation of Kngwarray’s work ever held in Europe and a celebration of her astonishing career as one of Australia’s greatest artists.
‘If you close your eyes and imagine the paintings in your mind's eye, you will see them transform. They are real—what Kngwarray painted is alive and true.’
—Jedda Kngwarray Purvis and Josie Petyarr Kunoth, June 2023
Emily Kam Kngwarray is presented in The Eyal Ofer Galleries.
Exhibition organised by Tate Modern and the National Gallery of Australia based on an exhibition curated by Hetti Perkins, Arrernte and Kalkadoon peoples and Kelli Cole, Warumunga and Luritja peoples.