With her solo show at the Tate Modern, the estate of Emily Kam Kngwarray has reached a new zenith, a critical and cultural high that sets the bar for future generations.

Despite winning posthumous representation for Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997, this is the first major show of her work ever in Europe. And with this, we can take heart that the voices of the Dreaming are reaching out further than ever before.

For anyone unfamiliar with Kngwarray's story it is quite a tale. She was an Anmatyerr woman born in the Utopia region of NT in around 1910. After providing ceremonial painting for decades, she came to her own practice late in life and originally worked in Batik when she started in her 60s. She had a large measure of success with the form but found after 10 or so years she couldn't take the physical demands of batik work anymore and chose to paint exclusively.

Originally she painted as part of a project initiated by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association and Utopia Art Sydney. All 81 works produced by the 80 artists during the four week period were acquired by the Robert Holmes à Court Collection and exhibited at the Ervin Gallery in Sydney. It was the dawn of a new era for women artists.

So it was that over an eight year period she was said to have produced over 3,000 works that resonate with her interpretations of Country. Her work is produced to be very specific to it's original intention and makes no apologies for what it is. Always admired for her precision and detail she was capable of creating large canvasses with ease all while holding the story firm.

Emily Kam Kngwarray at the Tate Modern, London.
10 July 2025 - 11 January 2026

Read more at Wikipedia and there’s a fitting review in The Guardian.