Emily Kam Kngwarray, *Ntang Dreaming* 1989
National Gallery of Australia. © Estate of Emily Kam Kngwarray / DACS 2024, All rights reserved

I recently enjoyed a survey of the work of Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray
(Tate Modern, London until 11 January 2026)

‘I keep on painting the place that belongs to me – I never change from painting that place.’
Emily Kam Kngwarray

Born around 1914 in the Northern Territory, Kngwarray spent much of her adult life watching cattle and sheep, working in kitchens and minding children. She spoke little English. In her mid-60s, she took a course in batik - decorating cloth using wax and dye – and by the early 1980s, her art was recognised and exhibited internationally. In 1988, she turned to painting - on large canvases, in thin, quick-drying acrylics. She was incredibly productive, creating some 3,000 paintings in the last six or seven years of her life. (She died in 1996.)

Emily Kam Kngwarray, not titled, 1981
National Gallery of Australia. © Estate of Emily Kam Kngwarray / DACS 2024, All rights reserved

In amongst the sinuous lines, the shimmering dots, daubs and dabs of white, red, yellow and ochre, we can make out foliage and flowers, seeds and skeletons. Through the organic scrawls, we can detect emu tracks, branches, insects, lizards and yams. We marvel at the heat and dust, the starry nights; the repeated rhythms and pulsating patterns; the constellations of colour. We may be looking at the earth or the sky; close-up or far-away. The images seem to vibrate. They are alive, haunted by ancestral spirits.

Kngwarray’s mesmerising, dizzying work expressed the depth of her relationship with her Alhalker home country, a land of low-lying ridges and rocky outcrops, woodlands and sandplains, waterholes and watercourses; a land she never left. She painted what she knew.

‘The pencil yam grows in our country – it belongs to us – the anwerlarr yam. They are found growing up along the creek banks. That’s what I painted.’

Emily Kam Kngwarray, *Kam*, 1991. Collection of National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm /Narrm / Melbourne, purchased from Admission Funds, 1992. © Emily Kam Kngwarray / Copyright Agency. Licensed by DACS 2025. Courtesy National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Tate Modern, London

Kngwarray teaches creative people to seek inspiration on their doorsteps; to regard more closely, and consider more deeply, their local culture and lands. There is beauty in the everyday, enchantment in the ordinary, magic in the familiar.

'Many times I've been told,
Speak your mind, just be bold.
So I'll close my eyes,
Look behind,
Moving on, moving on.
So I'll close my eyes,
And the tears will clear,
Then I feel no fear,
Then I'd feel no way.
My paths will remain straight.
Home again,
Home again.
One day I know,
I'll feel home again.'
Michael Kiwanuka, ‘Home Again’ (M Kiwanuka / M Leroy)

No. 532