On the occasion of the exhibition Emily Kam Kngwarray: My Country, presented in collaboration with D’Lan Contemporary, please join us for a conversation with writer Jennifer Higgie, curator Tamsin Hong and artist and writer Amanda Thomson to discuss Kngwarray’s work and its resonances with contemporary approaches to land, embodiment, and women’s knowledge systems. Moderated by Vanessa Merlino, this event will take place on Friday, June 6, from 4:00 PM at Pace’s Hanover Square gallery in London.
Emily Kam Kngwarray (c. 1914–96) is one of Australia’s most critically acclaimed contemporary artists. An Elder of the Anmatyerr people and custodian of her ancestral Country, Alhalker, she began working with batik in the 1970s before turning to painting in 1988. Over the next eight years, she produced an extraordinary body of work—around 3,000 paintings—that gave visual form to the rhythms, laws, and ancestral forces of her Country.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Country encompasses not only land, but also water, sky, living beings, and the cultural and spiritual responsibilities that bind them. Kngwarray’s work was rooted in the Dreaming—a living system of knowledge and creation—and her paintings embody this worldview, expressing an intimate and dynamic relationship with place.
