Emily Kam Kngwarray was once asked why people loved her paintings.
"I paint my Country and people love my Country," she responded.
The senior Anmatyerr woman from Alhalker Country started painting in her seventies, seven years before her death in 1996. Her work depicts her life and her deep knowledge of culture and Country.
She is one of the twentieth century's most remarkable artists. Her pieces are cherished across the world and some now hang in a new exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.
Five years in the making, the expansive show is a collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia and the first major solo exhibition for an Indigenous Australian artist at the Tate.
Co-curator of the exhibition and the Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art at the Tate Modern Kimberley Moulton told NITV displaying Kngwarray’s works in the United Kingdom will introduce new audiences to Indigenous art.
The Yorta Yorta woman hopes the show will invite people to learn more about our cultures.
Source: Supplied / Kathleen Arundell
“What we embody in that, in terms of the plants and the land, but also the spiritual aspects of Country, the cultural aspects of Country.”
Ms Moulton said sharing culture through art was an important aspect of Kngwarray's practice and this latest showing sees her evolution as an artist.
“I think with the exhibition it’s really important to acknowledge that she was very intentional in her work,” she said.
“There was an intent to share her culture with the world, to share these deep layers of Country and knowledge that she had and quite a brilliant approach to colour as well.”
Warumungu and Luritja woman and lead curator, Kelli Cole, has worked on previous iterations of the exhibition in collaboration with Hettie Perkins.
She brings with her a strong connection with Kngwarray’s work and with her community and Country.
Having travelled to Kngwarray’s community upwards of twelve times over the years, she said working with them was central to the curatorial process.
“Every painting, every wall text, every video, everything we’ve ever made for this exhibition, her family see it and approve it before we ever display it and that is really, really important,” said Ms Cole.
Renowned artist Emily Kam Kngwarray. Credit: NITV
Ms Cole said that Kngwarray's global reach and impact is down to her ability to move people of all backgrounds.
“We’re in this room that is all about Country and I’ve got goosebumps talking about it," she said.
"There’s a visceral feeling about her work and I think that is because knowing that her work is all about painting those ceremonies…the Country that she does ceremony for, so she vitalises that Country, Country is vitalised and it gives back to her."
She said Country strikes her in the art.
“As an Aboriginal woman, I feel it, but when I’m with my non-Indigenous colleagues and friends and visitors that have seen this exhibition at the National Gallery or even stand in front of her work regardless of where they are, they always say that they feel something," she said.
"I think that is extraordinary.”
Lead curator Kelli Cole (left) and Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art at the Tate Modern, Kimberley Moulton. Credit: NITV
“She wasn’t looking towards Europe or America in her work, she was very much informed by Country, she was reading and interpreting her land,” Ms Moulton said.
“She started painting in her late seventies, so [there were] decades of this deep connection and I think it’s really interesting to see the art world be so responsive to her work in that way because I think what they’re responding to is this incredible detail to being true to the cultural ways of being, of her lens, the way she looked at Country and then applied that to the canvas is so unique.”
It wasn’t a refusal of the Western canon - it just wasn’t important. She didn’t need it because she had Country and she had culture, and that influenced everything that she was doing, and that was her story that she was telling.Kimberley Moulton, Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art at the Tate Modern.
Kngwarray also regularly painted her namesake, kam, the seedpods of the anwerlarr (pencil yam), an important Dreaming for Kngwarray's Country, Alhalker, showing just how intertwined her identity and Country was.
"I paint my plant, the one I am named after," she once said.
"Kam is its name. Kam. I am named after the anwelarr plant. I am Kam!"
Kngwarray’s ability to portray Country truthfully is undeniable and perhaps best summed up by those who knew her best.
On one wall of the exhibition a quote from Jedda Purvis Kngwarray, Jennifer Purvis Kngwarray and Josie Kunoth Petyarr is printed.
“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. The paintings are dynamic and keep on changing, and you can see how realistic they are," it reads.
"You might wonder, ‘Hey, how come these paintings are changing form?’ That powerful Country changes colour, just like the paintings do. The Country transforms itself, and those paintings do as well. That’s why the old woman is famous.”
Emily Kam Kngwarray is at Tate Modern from 10 July 2025 until 11 January 2026.
