Georges Petitjean on Emily Kam Kngwarray, the living presence of Alhalker and allowing one of the twentieth century’s great artists to speak beyond Western art-historical frameworks.
24 August 2026
Thirty years after her passing, Emily Kam Kngwarray’s paintings remain startlingly alive. Rooted in Alhalker, her Country, and in Anmatyerr ceremony, song, storytelling and embodied knowledge, her extraordinary body of work resists easy translation into the conventions of Western modernism. As Petitjean puts it, the encounter should begin more simply: “Let the work speak for itself.”
Now, more than 80 works have come together at Fondation Opale in Switzerland for the most comprehensive retrospective of Kngwarray ever presented in Europe, tracing a remarkably prolific eight-year painting career while foregrounding the cultural continuities that shaped it. Developed in dialogue with members of the Utopia community, the exhibition understands Country not as a landscape or a metaphor, but as something living, changing, and inseparable from Kngwarray’s practice.
ART AFRICA speaks with Fondation Opale curator Georges Petitjean about rethinking the exhibition for its Swiss iteration, the responsibilities of presenting Indigenous knowledge internationally, and why Kngwarray’s work continues to communicate with such immediacy across cultures.
Brendon Bell-Roberts: ‘Emily Kam Kngwarray’ arrives at Fondation Opale for the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist ever presented in Europe. What was most important to preserve, and what needed rethinking, when expanding the exhibition for this new context?
Georges Petitjean: Most important to preserve was, of course, to give a comprehensive overview of Kngwarray’s work to a broad public. In the ‘Emily Kam Kngwarray’ exhibition at Tate Modern in London, there was a bit more emphasis on education with a didactic section in the exhibition itself. At Fondation Opale, the art is presented as contemporary art speaking for itself, with a didactic section, including a short video, in a specially reserved space when coming out of the exhibition. The specific floor plan of the spaces at Fondation Opale, basically two large rooms on two levels, required a different approach to the strictly chronological hang. The larger-dimension pictures are hung on the ground floor, where walls are higher, while generally earlier pictures of smaller dimensions are to be situated on the upper floor. This implied that the later works (the large Yam Dreaming) are presented first. Hence, the exhibition begins with some of the last works. Some works were left out of this iteration (like the Alhalker suite consisting of 22 panels in the NGA collection) largely because of space specifications, while other works were included (like the suite of ten ochre paintings). Batiks are hung in the staircase, a fully climatized exhibition space in itself where there is little light (a requirement for conservational reasons), which connects both exhibition spaces. Different from the exhibition iterations at NGA and Tate Modern is a small, separate exhibition highlighting the art from the Utopia community.
The exhibition positions Kngwarray not only as a central figure in Aboriginal art but also as one of the defining artists of twentieth-century contemporary art. How does it challenge long-standing distinctions between Indigenous art and modernism?
Emily Kam Kngwarray has no relation to modernism as this is defined in modern art theory. Her work should best be approached with an open spirit. Most visitors at Fondation Opale don’t have an arts background and have little to no knowledge of art theory. This is probably an advantage and the best way to approach the art as it should be approached, direct and intuitive. Kngwarray’s art is not derivative of Western modernism, but is a visual language that is grounded in Anmatyerr ceremonial practice, such as body marking, drawing in the sand and painting on rock surfaces, but also dancing, singing and storytelling. No attempt is made in the exhibition to compare her art to Western artists and their work, but instead the emphasis is on the culture and country of Emily Kam Kngwarray. For instance, in one room there is a recording of Kngwarray singing during a ceremonial performance.
At the heart of Kngwarray’s practice is Alhalker, her Country, understood as a living and reciprocal presence rather than simply a landscape. How did you translate this relationship into the exhibition without reducing it to metaphor or aesthetic interpretation?
The descendants of the artist give the answer better than I could word it: If you close your eyes and imagine the paintings in your mind’s eye, you will see them transform. They are real – what Kngwarray painted is alive and true. The paintings are dynamic and keep on changing, and you can see how realistic they are. You might wonder, ‘Hey, how come these paintings are changing form?’ The powerful Country changes colour, just like the paintings do. The Country transforms itself, and those paintings do as well. That’s why the old woman is famous. Jedda Kngwarray Purvis and Josie Petyarr Kunoth. [Translated from Anmatyerr by Jennifer Green.]
Notwithstanding a still medium, such as acrylic on canvas, the paintings show something – Country – that is alive and in a constant state of being. Showing movement in a by definition motionless medium is paradoxical. Yet, for a broad audience, the paintings indeed convey a sense – or optical illusion – of movement.
The exhibition was developed in dialogue with the Utopia community and senior Anmatyerr custodians. How did these conversations shape curatorial decisions, and what responsibilities emerge when presenting Indigenous knowledge systems to international audiences?
Building further on the preparatory work that was undertaken with members of the Utopia community for the iterations of this exhibition at the NGA in Canberra and Tate Modern in London, a research trip was undertaken with staff of Fondation Opale in March 2026 towards this exhibition in order to consult with members of the community. Plans of the spaces at Fondation Opale were presented to the community members who were informed and consulted on the new display, as well as the inclusion of works that were not shown in the two previous exhibition iterations. Kelli Cole, co-curator of this iteration and also former curator at the NGA, had been on all previous research trips and hence constituted a continuation with the two previous iterations in the process. This responsibility extended beyond preparatory consultations, as Fondation Opale facilitated the travel of eight members of the Utopia community and Kngwarray’s family to Switzerland for final consultations in situ, the press conference, talks and the opening of the exhibition. It was and is important to include the Indigenous community in all aspects of the exhibition and to take into account their view on the show.
Kngwarray’s artistic career spanned just eight years, yet it produced more than 3,000 works and a remarkable evolution in style. How did you construct a narrative that reflects both the extraordinary pace of her practice and the continuity of the cultural knowledge underpinning it?
Although the exhibition doesn’t necessarily follow a chronological line, in part due to the specifications of the spaces, it does show an overview of an artistic practice that spans 1989 to 1996. All of Kngwarray’s different periods and styles are incorporated in this exhibition. Again, let the work speak for itself and liberate yourself from Western theoretical structures. The work is powerful enough. Or as André Breton wrote in 1962 in the preface of Karel Kupka’s seminal book on Arnhem Land paintings on bark, Un Art à l’état brut, “First, admire. There will always be time, later, to question yourself about what you admire, to the point of not wanting to ignore even just a single thing”. Let yourself be moved by what you see. Afterwards, question yourself about what you have seen. I refer here again to the very important quote of Jedda Kngwarray Purvis and Josie Petyarr Kunoth.
Bringing together loans from more than twenty-five lenders, including major Australian institutions and works from private collections, creates an unusually comprehensive view of Kngwarray’s practice. Were there particular works or juxtapositions that shifted your understanding of her artistic legacy?
The Awely (ceremony) paintings that were initially displayed at the Venice Biennale in 1997 probably present pivotal works in the oeuvre of Kngwarray. Bringing together works from that series triggered, in particular, an exploration of Kngwarray’s art in the light of broad, mainly Western audiences. These works consist of gestural line, derivative of body markings. It was these works that Sol LeWitt, for whom the idea was indeed more important than the physical execution of the artwork, saw in 1997 at the Venice Biennale and which provided him with the insight into the importance of the conceptual even in what are at first sight strictly gestural paintings. LeWitt was no doubt attracted to the fact that the idea, so paramount to LeWitt, was already connected to a cultural tradition long before one in the Western world even came up with the notion of ‘art’. That Kngwarray’s paintings transcend mere painting, but are deeply connected to what in Western art theory would come to be known as conceptualism, is indeed a significant aspect to keep in mind.
Fondation Opale has long positioned itself as a space for dialogue around contemporary Aboriginal art. How does this exhibition contribute to broader conversations about Indigenous sovereignty, authorship, and how museums frame cultural histories across continents?
Fondation Opale indeed fosters dialogues and connections through art following the precept that art is a powerful catalyst to bring peoples and their respective cultures together. Its exhibition spaces of over 1000 m2 offer the public the opportunity to explore contemporary art concerned with global themes and contemporary issues, such as ecology and First Nations politics, narratives and knowledge systems, in the form of temporary exhibitions, public programs (conferences, artist talks, concerts, performances, films, etc), creative workshops and research. While the basis of the Fondation Opale is the collection of Indigenous Australian art of Bérengère Primat, founder of the Fondation Opale, in the exhibitions artworks from different artists with different cultural backgrounds are often juxtaposed in order to encourage the visitor to engage in a cross-cultural dialogue in art. Fondation Opale operates through explicit cultural consent from and consultation with Aboriginal artists, art centres and communities. Contrary to museums and art galleries that were founded many years ago in a colonial context, Fondation Opale from the onset was founded as a space for contemporary art where all art and artists involved have an equal standing and voice.
Thirty years after Kngwarray’s passing, why does her work continue to resonate so powerfully with contemporary audiences, particularly now that questions of land, ecology, and Indigenous knowledge are increasingly urgent?
While all of Kngwarray’s paintings ultimately have as their subject the artist’s Country and associated ceremonies, relating to the continuous creation of the earth, there are few clues for a Western audience to grasp this underlying, quite intangible theme. However, the strong sense of optical movement or shimmer that prevails in all her pictures precisely enables an uninformed, uneducated audience to grasp a sense of the concept of omnipresent and continual motion of formation and change in the land. As if they were touched by the same source of universal creation. The statement of Jedda Kngwarray Purvis and Josie Petyarr Kunoth (see above) points to the essence of Kngwarray’s art practice, her very being. The fact that a non-Aboriginal audience also senses this strength makes her globally recognised as one of the great artists of the twentieth century. This generosity to share in Emily’s art is precisely the mark of great art. The strength of her art lies precisely in the fact that it is able to convey the deep connection between the land, or the earth, and the humans that inhabit it. It is precisely very pressing matters such as land, ecology and climate change, as well as a serious revaluation of Indigenous knowledge regarding ecology and land management, so particularly pertinent in these challenging times, that make the appeal of Kngwarray’s oeuvre so poignant and timely for contemporary audiences. Its appeal to a broad audience is intuitive and direct.
This exhibition is on view at Foundation Opale, in Lens, Switzerland, until 8 November 2026.
