Behold, the glory that is Emily Kam Kngwarray and her painting Alhalker Country on the cover of the upcoming Galah Issue 13. This is my favourite Galah cover yet. Each time I look at it, I feel an almost electric jolt of joy. If Galah is about celebrating creativity, beauty
Behold, the glory that is Emily Kam Kngwarray and her painting Alhalker Country on the cover of the upcoming Galah Issue 13. This is my favourite Galah cover yet. Each time I look at it, I feel an almost electric jolt of joy.
If Galah is about celebrating creativity, beauty and excellence in regional Australia, I can think of no better cover girl than Emily Kam Kngwarray.
Kngwarray, who died almost 30 years ago at the age of about 86 in Alice Springs, first picked up a paintbrush in her late 70s. And even though her painting career was only about eight years long, she created more than 3000 paintings, making a profound impact on the contemporary art world.
London’s Tate Modern, which is currently showing the first major solo exhibition in Europe of her work – and its first major solo of any Australian artist – describes Kngwarray as "one of the world's most significant painters to emerge in the late 20th century".
I remember first seeing Kngwarray's pink and white Alhalker Country painting in my mum’s copy of Vogue Living, circa 2007, in a story about Linda Gregoriou's Sydney apartment. I would have looked at the photograph of the white living room with Kngwarray's painting above the fireplace tens, if not 100, times. Those dots, falling like rain. It was so beautiful. The only other time I have felt so bowled over, in a cultural sense, was when I read Murakami for the first time. It was his book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and its originality, beauty and whimsy were similarly electric.
That kind of feeling is a motivating force. Just as I went on to read every other book Murakami had written, Kngwarray’s Alhalker Country painting was a gateway into a new (to me) world – about Kngwarray the artist, but also the wider world of Australian Aboriginal art, which has been a source of great interest ever since.
I couldn’t be happier to publish Kngwarray’s painting as the cover of the next Galah, as well as the accompanying story about the artist by our beloved regular Mark McGinness on the inside pages.
This, and so much more, is in the next issue of Galah, hitting letterboxes early November. If you're not already a subscriber, you can pre-order Galah Issue 13 now.
For now, it's full steam ahead for Team Galah, getting the rest of the issue ready to send to the printers. I haven't been all that helpful, having spent two weeks on a ship in the Kimberley, but now that I'm back on dry land, I'll make amends.
Annabelle
Ps: Linda Gregoriou, the owner of the Sydney apartment pictured, is the same Linda Gregoriou we visited in Galah Issue 1 for this story about her Windsor cottage. She's got such a flair for creating beautiful homes.
Pre-order Galah Issue 13 before midnight on Tuesday 14 October for free shipping. We'll send the magazine to your letter box early November 2025.
Come fire or tempest, or rain, hail or shine, our lives are shaped – often defined – by the elements. How to thrive in the face of uncertainty, cope with extremes, respect and protect our world – these are the big elemental issues.
Here’s what you'll read about in Issue 13:
