Emilie Kngwarray @ Tate Modern

Emilie Kam Kngwarray, Untitled (Alhalker), 1989

I really loved this exhibition, particularly for the colours in the paintings, the focus on animal footprints, flight paths, hunting and eating activities, as well as their age. And the animals that Kngwarray represents are exotic: emus, goannas, insects and native Australian birds. The intense yellows and reds, marking the movements and stories of animals across space, seen from above on huge canvases were delightful. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander painters such as Kngwarray see the land as alive, filled with energy, and that's what provokes them to paint it. 

Emilie Kam Kngwarray, Anwellar (pencil yam), 1990

I was struck by how realist the work can be when seen from particular perspectives. As paint is used to map space and place, to see the landscape and everything that moves across it from above, the deep ochre tones come to reflect the Australian outback. Similarly, the artist's profound connection to the earth is held in the natural earths and plants from which her intense colours are made. When Kngwarray shifted to using acrylic, it felt as though her paintings became representations of the land, weather, animals, and the stories written by them. The thing itself was no longer in the painting. 

Emilie Kngwarray @ Tate Modern Installation View

Towards the end of her life, Kngwarray painted bold lines and blocks of colour, transposed from the body painting used for dances and ceremonies, particularly as they are practiced by women. Thus, the work turns to issues of family and female community, belonging, connections between women and through ancestral lines. The spiritual dimensions become increasingly pronounced as the colours become bolder and brighter. Far from the typical tendency of an aging artist to paint smaller and more sombre, darker works, Kngwarray becomes increasingly positive and the works more and more joyful as she gets older. 

Emilie Kngwarray, Untitled (Awelye), 1994

As wonderful as the exhibition was, I always have issues with the exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in museums like Tate Modern.  I kept wishing there was more information, and at the very least, reference to the appropriation of Kngwarray and other First Nation artists' work. The exhibition makes a point of reinforcing that her community was involved in the selection and curation of the paintings on display, but I wanted to know more about what happened before they were produced. Where did her paints come from? How did she learn to paint? Who was supporting her as an artist? When and why did she move to painting on canvas and using acrylics? And, how did she become so well-known. As the only way to become a well know artist is to have a gallery or institution promote the work, there must have been steps taken to make her work public, steps not shared in the exhibition text. Given that, according to the exhibition text, she made her name as an artist in the 1980s, it's likely that she encountered exploitation and appropriation. 

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Ntang Dreaming, 1989

In addition, not knowing the long history of these works and the artist, it was a little unsettling to be looking from behind a barrier at her paintings in a museum, hung as precious objects on a wall. Painting in Kngwarray's culture is a more practical, integrated activity, rather than a product on a wall to be revered. Similarly, the choice to show a single First Nation painter also makes me approach with caution: the idea that work by a single artist be put on a pedestal to be admired in a prestigious museum privileges one artist over all of those who formed the community that is indispensable to her work. Single-artist authorship is not in keeping with the culture that enabled Kngwarray as artist and her paintings as profound art.