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SBS Australia
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
History made as first major Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition opens in Europe
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 'For the first time, we're going to have Tate audiences that are thinking about what Country means to Aboriginal people, not just land, but Country,' she said. '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 The exhibition includes 83 pieces, some of which have never been seen before and have come out of private collections from across Europe and America. 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 Ms Moulton said Kngwarray's practice of drawing solely on her knowledge of and connection to Country, is what makes her a remarkable artist. '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.
The Age
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Britain celebrates Emily, after hidden letter reveals it turned down Indigenous art
One of Australia's most celebrated artists, Emily Kam Kngwarray, will be taken to the world this week in a major exhibition in London – as a long-hidden letter reveals how Britain once dismissed the idea of showing her work. London's tube stations have been adorned with Kngwarray's vivid paintings of ancestral stories to promote the major event at the Tate Modern, the first solo exhibition in Europe to show her work. The exhibition, organised with the National Gallery of Australia, will run for six months and is expected to draw thousands of visitors to see more than 70 works including early batiks and her final paintings. But a letter sitting in a London gallery reveals the Tate turned down an offer to show Australian Indigenous art when Kngwarray was taking the art world by storm. When London gallery owner Rebecca Hossack asked the Tate to consider adding Indigenous works to its collection in August 1996, the institution replied that it was adding contemporary works but would not consider Indigenous artists. 'You may have noticed that we acquired a landscape by Fred Williams last year,' Tate director Nicholas Serota replied, referring to the famous Australian painter. 'I do not think that it would be appropriate for us to move further and to take on an interest in Australian Aboriginal art, any more than we can do the same for equivalent work being undertaken in Africa or Latin America.' Kngwarray, born on Anmatyerr country north of Alice Springs in around 1910, stunned the art world with her batiks and canvases after she began painting in her 70s. Her work now fetches millions of dollars at auction.
Sydney Morning Herald
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Britain celebrates Emily, after hidden letter reveals it turned down Indigenous art
One of Australia's most celebrated artists, Emily Kam Kngwarray, will be taken to the world this week in a major exhibition in London – as a long-hidden letter reveals how Britain once dismissed the idea of showing her work. London's tube stations have been adorned with Kngwarray's vivid paintings of ancestral stories to promote the major event at the Tate Modern, the first solo exhibition in Europe to show her work. The exhibition, organised with the National Gallery of Australia, will run for six months and is expected to draw thousands of visitors to see more than 70 works including early batiks and her final paintings. But a letter sitting in a London gallery reveals the Tate turned down an offer to show Australian Indigenous art when Kngwarray was taking the art world by storm. When London gallery owner Rebecca Hossack asked the Tate to consider adding Indigenous works to its collection in August 1996, the institution replied that it was adding contemporary works but would not consider Indigenous artists. 'You may have noticed that we acquired a landscape by Fred Williams last year,' Tate director Nicholas Serota replied, referring to the famous Australian painter. 'I do not think that it would be appropriate for us to move further and to take on an interest in Australian Aboriginal art, any more than we can do the same for equivalent work being undertaken in Africa or Latin America.' Kngwarray, born on Anmatyerr country north of Alice Springs in around 1910, stunned the art world with her batiks and canvases after she began painting in her 70s. Her work now fetches millions of dollars at auction.
ABC News
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Some of Jenny Kee's designs are on display at the National Gallery of Australia. (ABC News: Emily Anderson)
Some of Jenny Kee's designs are on display at the National Gallery of Australia. ( ABC News: Emily Anderson )
AU Financial Review
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
Colourful artists Kee and Jackson deliver iconic designs to NGA
Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson are a flurry of colours in the halls of National Gallery of Australia. It's five decades since the two women first met, drawn together by a creative magnet and their mutual love of the Australian landscape, its flora and fauna, as well as artists such as Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger and Sonia Delaunay.
