Until 11 January 2026: Emily Kam Kngwarray: Joining the Dots

Tate Modern, London

This landmark exhibition celebrates the work of Australian Indigenous artist Emily Kam Kngwarray (1914–1996), an Anmatyerre elder and ancestral custodian of Alhalker Country in the Northern Territory. It is the first major presentation of her work in Europe, following its debut at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Kngwarray’s profound affinity with textiles shaped her artistic journey. Before turning to paint in her late seventies, she was a founding member of the Utopia Women’s Batik Group, a collective that reinterpreted Indonesian batik techniques through an Indigenous lens. Working seated on the ground, she painted molten wax directly onto stretched fabric, translating ceremonial designs into vivid textiles that embodied the rhythms and spirit of desert life. These early works laid the foundation for her later monumental canvases.

Kngwarray’s paintings pulse with the energy of her homeland, their layered motifs evoking the seeds, vines, and ancestral tracks of the desert. Both spiritual and performative, her art transmits generations of cultural knowledge, bridging the tactile world of cloth and the boundless landscapes of The Dreaming—a visual language of immense beauty, depth, and continuity.

Read more about Emily Kam Kngwarray is Selvedge Issue 127, Aurora