Sydney Contemporary 2026 | Booth C10
Art Leven's Sydney Contemporary 2026 presentation is anchored by a significant early work by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Ankara Merne – Intekwe (1990), created for the artist's first solo exhibition and held in the same private collection since its acquisition. Surrounding this landmark painting are major presentations by Bugai Whyoulter, Carol Puruntatameri, Samson Bonson and Lena Yarinkura, whose practices demonstrate the continuing evolution of First Nations contemporary art through innovation grounded in culture, Country and ancestral knowledge.
Venue
Carriageworks | 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh
NSW, Australia
on view
Sep 2 — Sep 6
Carriageworks | 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh · NSW, Australia
Art Leven at Sydney Contemporary 2026
At the centre of Art Leven’s Sydney Contemporary 2026 presentation is a significant early work by Emily Kame Kngwarreye (Emily Kam Kngwarray), Ankara Merne - Intekwe, 1990, created for the artist's first solo exhibition. Held in the same private collection since its acquisition in 1990, the work retains exceptional provenance and stands as one of the defining paintings from the formative years of her career. Surrounding this landmark work by a master in the making, are individual presentations by Bugai Whyoulter, Carol Puruntatameri, Samson Bonson, and Lena Yarinkura. Bugai Whyoulter's expansive paintings evoke the vast landscapes of Martu Country through a sophisticated language of colour, gesture and atmosphere. Carol Puruntatameri's masterful bark paintings continue to expand on the artistic traditions of the Tiwi Islands utilising a powerful blend of traditional ochres and acrylic pigments with a distinctive confidence. Samson Bonson, Gurrgoni man from Maningrida Art Center who learned from the legendary Crusoe Kurddal, reimagines the ceremonial Lorrkon as contemporary sculpture of striking formal power. Also from Maningrida, Lena Yarinkura’s remarkable aluminium sculptures, developed in collaboration with Urban Art Projects, demonstrate how cultural knowledge and traditional practices can be translated across new materials while retaining their integrity. Where Lena Yarinkura and Carol Puruntatameri push the envelope in their use of media and mark-making, Samson Bonson and Bugai Whyoulter represent more linear artistic evolutions, albeit in opposite directions; Bonson’s work is remarkably detailed and presents a clear refinement of the techniques passed on by Mimih-master Crusoe Kurddal, while Whyoulter’s practice is remarkable for its gestural boldness, exhibiting confident, loose brushstrokes while retaining strong compositions steeped in knowledge of Country. Each artist’s work represents an expansion of their existing art-making traditions, sharing a commitment to innovation grounded in culture.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Ankara Merne - Intekwe
1990
medium
acrylic on linen
dimensions
122 x 92 x 2 cm
Artworks
52
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Art Leven
Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art) is Australia’s longest-established exhibiting gallery dedicated to contemporary First Nations art. Founded in 1981, the gallery operates a hybrid model encompassing exhibitions, auctions, and private sales, with a strong focus on ethical practice, cultural integrity, and long-term sustainability for artists and communities. Under the direction of Mirri Leven, Art Leven has evolved over the past decade into a highly collaborative platform, working closely with First Nations artists, curators, and art centres across Australia. Our program is shaped through direct engagement with artists and Country, with the gallery team travelling regularly to remote and regional communities to develop exhibitions, source works, and build enduring relationships.
Sydney Contemporary 2026 | Booth C10
Untitled, 2026
acrylic on linen
128 x 303 x 4 cm
Location Buyer
This is Bugai’s Country — her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. Bugai’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time Bugai travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups, most notably the Bidu family. The Country they traversed encompassed an enormous tract of land, with an aerial distance of more than 600 kilometres, from present day Balfour Downs Station to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). Bugai was born at Pulkinya. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around Parnngurr, Punmu, Kun Kun (Kuny-kuny) and Kunawarritji. As a young woman Bugai travelled with her husband through the Karlamilyi (Rudall River) region and up and down the Canning Stock Route, where she first met cattle drovers. She continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. Portrayed in this work are features of Bugai’s ngurra, such as the striking salt lakes, dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources Bugai and her family camped at. These include Parnngurr, Marlirri, Wangkakalu, Kurta-kurta (Camel Rock), Pimurlu, Jilkupuka (Canning Stock Route Well 21), Kaalpa (Canning Stock Route Well 23), Kartarru (Canning Stock Route Well 24), Wanli (Warnli, Canning Stock Route Well 25), Tiwa (Canning Stock Route Well 26), Partujarrapirri, Raarki (Canning Stock Route Well 27), Wuranu (Canning Stock Route Well 29), Juntu-juntu (Canning Stock Route Well 30), and Kunawarritji. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country sustained Martu as they travelled across their Country, hunting and gathering, visiting family, and fulfilling ceremonial obligations. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life. Martumili Artists was established in late 2006 and supports Martu artists in Kunawarritji, Punmu, Parnngurr, Jigalong, Warralong, Irrungadji (Nullagine) and Parnpajinya (Newman). Many Martu artists have close relationships with established artists amongst Yulparija, Kukatja and other Western Desert peoples and are now gaining recognition in their own right for their diverse, energetic and unmediated painting styles. Their works reflect the dramatic geography and scale of their homelands in the Great Sandy Desert and Rudall River regions of Western Australia. Martumili Artists represents speakers of Manyjilyjarra, Warnman, Kartujarra, Pujarra and Martu Wangka languages, many of whom experienced first contact with Europeans in the 1960s. The artists include painters, working in acrylics and oils, as well as weavers coiling baskets and sculptors working in wood, grass and wool. Martu artists proudly maintain their creative practices whilst pursuing social and cultural obligations across the Martu homelands.