ABOUT THE ARTIST

Emily Kam Kngwarray, who painted the first of her 4000 works in 1989 at 79 years of age has become the most highly recognized and successful Australian artist of the 20th century. Exhibitions, held at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1997, the National Gallery in Tokyo in 2008 and the National Museum of Australia, were followed, in 2024, by a major retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia which will open at the Tate Modern in London on the 8th of July, 2025. Emily is now undeniably Australia’s’ greatest international art ‘star’.

Considered one of Australia's most important and influential Aboriginal artists of the 20th century, Emily Kam Kngwarray was born in the desert at Alhalkere, in the Utopia region of the Northern Territory. Initiated into the Law of her community and being a ceremonial leader, she began painting on canvas in 1989, at the age of almost 80. Breaking free from traditional iconographic codes, Emily Kam Kngwarray distinguished herself by her extraordinary inventiveness and freedom. Her paintings describe her traditional country, Alhalkere, and tell the mythical stories for which she has inherited responsibility, in particular the Yam Dreaming, Arlatyeye.