As part of its XXXVIII Songlines Season, Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery presents Tjukurpa, a major exhibition of works by acclaimed Indigenous Australian artist Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi.

The exhibition marks a significant full-circle moment for the gallery, arriving 36 years after it first introduced the work of Gabriella’s father, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, to British audiences. A pioneering figure of the Papunya painting movement, Clifford Possum helped bring Western Desert art to international attention when he exhibited in London with Rebecca Hossack in 1990.

Now, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi continues and reinterprets that artistic legacy through works deeply connected to Anmatyerre culture, storytelling and Country.

Rich in colour, symbolism and intricate patterning, the paintings explore sacred sites, songlines and ancestral narratives that express enduring relationships between land, kinship and cultural memory.

The exhibition focuses particularly on two recurring themes within Gabriella’s practice: My Grandmother’s Country and the Seven Sisters Dreaming story.

Drawing on stories passed down from her paternal grandmother, Long Rose Nungala, and other senior women mentors, Gabriella’s My Grandmother’s Country works use vivid pinks, mauves and burnt earth tones to depict landscapes shaped by food gathering, medicinal knowledge and women’s cultural practices.

Also featured are works inspired by the Seven Sisters Dreaming, one of the most significant and widely shared Aboriginal stories across Australia. Associated with the Pleiades star cluster, the narrative follows seven ancestral sisters travelling across the land while pursued by a trickster figure, creating landscapes and sacred sites before ascending into the sky.

Born in Alice Springs and now based in Melbourne, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi has exhibited internationally and undertaken major public commissions, including works for the Sydney Opera House’s Vivid programme and a painting presented to Queen Elizabeth II at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Her work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia and the Royal Collection in the UK.

Tjukurpa offers London audiences an opportunity to experience the power, beauty and cultural depth of contemporary Western Desert painting through one of its leading voices.