London’s Tate Modern is set to present the first major European solo exhibition of influential Aboriginal artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, showcasing over 70 works from her remarkable career. The exhibition, running from July 10, 2025 to January 11, 2026, will offer European audiences an unprecedented opportunity to experience the work of one of contemporary art’s most extraordinary figures.
Kngwarray, who began painting in her 70s, emerged as a pioneering force in Aboriginal, women’s, and Australian art. A senior Anmatyerr woman from Australia’s Northern Territory, she transformed her deep spiritual connection to her ancestral Country, Alhalker, into vibrant batik textiles and large-scale acrylic paintings.
The exhibition traces Kngwarray’s artistic evolution, beginning with her earliest batik works from the 1970s and including “Emu woman” (1988), her first canvas painting that brought her national recognition. Many of the pieces, which feature motifs of native plants, animals, and natural forms, will be displayed outside Australia for the first time.
A centerpiece of the exhibition will be “The Alhalker suite” (1993), an ambitious 22-canvas series offering a vivid portrait of her homeland. The work demonstrates Kngwarray’s expanded color palette, incorporating bright pastels to evoke wildflowers and merging dots to represent the landscape’s rockfaces and grasslands.
The exhibition culminates with works from her final years, including “Untitled (awely)” (1994), a six-panel piece that was featured at the 1997 Venice Biennale. These later works show a dramatic shift in style, characterized by bold parallel lines and fluid brushstrokes that reflect her connection to ceremonial body painting traditions.
Organized in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia, the exhibition is curated by a team including Kelli Cole, Director of Curatorial & Engagement at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Gallery of Australia, and presents Kngwarray’s work through the lens of her multiple roles as matriarch, storyteller, singer, and custodian of Country.
The exhibition will be held in The Eyal Ofer Galleries at Tate Modern, with support from various organizations including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the National Gallery of Australia Foundation.
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