Famous Indigenous Artists You Need to Know About

Indigenous artists rose to fame with recent changes in the understanding of art and its histories, removed from the Eurocentric perspective. As our list below will show, Indigenous and native artists struggled with various forms of oppression, marginalization, and direct violence to achieve the status of an artist well beyond their communities and to feature in museum exhibitions. 

America, Canada, Australia, and other regions colonized by Europeans had strong and vibrant cultural traditions even before they were ‘discovered’ by the European gaze. Contemporary Indigenous artists use these traditions and heritage to weave their own aesthetics combining old and new themes, styles, and materials. Native, indigenous, and contemporary mix in their works, bringing the arts of the so-called new world to museum institutions worldwide. The work of native and indigenous artists was not always considered art in the Western sense, but new generations of creatives shifted this perspective and expanded the meaning of arts beyond the narrow understanding adopted in a part of the world. 

Championed by art institutions in recent years, these are the leading representatives of Indigenous art today. 

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

It is rarely heard that an Indigenous or a native artist is the most successful in a history of a country. Placed on the margins of the dominant art history, native artists, especially women native artists, had a much steeper road to follow than most, so it is much more remarkable that some of them achieved ‘the most successful in history’ accolade.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996) is one such example. Considered the most successful artist in the history of Australian art, Emily comes from the Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory. She grew up working on cattle stations and in a batik technique before she was introduced to acrylics in 1988. 

During her painterly career that lasted around 8 years, she produced over 3,000 paintings and became known as an artist locally and internationally only in her eighties. Her works are inspired by her cultural life and the role of an Anmatyerre elder and custodian of the women’s Dreaming sites in Alhalkere. 

Norval Morrisseau

Considered the Mishomis, or a grandfather of contemporary Indigenous/native art in Canada, Norval Morrisseau (1931-2007) belonged to the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation. Considered the Picasso of the North, Morrisseau was inspired by the legends and stories of his people that he transformed into his unique visual style. 

Also the creator of the Woodland School of art and a member of the Indian Group of Seven, Morrisseau grew up at a time when indigenous people in Canada were confined to reserves and forced to attend residential schools. The oppression of the Indigenous community also included the ban on practicing traditional ceremonies. Norval himself experienced the brutality of the Canadian regime in school, where he was banned from acknowledging his culture and speaking his traditional language. He also endured sexual and psychological abuse that scarred him for life. 

He left school at the age of ten and started spending more time with the elders from whom he learned about the legends and history of his people. Stories and traditions, but also visions and dreams, found their way to his art, marked by strong black outlines and vivid colors, in combination of mixed media. Later on, he also included themes from Christianity and his personal struggles. Although forgotten for several years, the interest in his indigenous art resurfaced with the 2006 retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Canada. 

Albert Namatjira

Albert Namatjira (1902 – 1959) was one of the most famous Indigenous Australian artists in the world who adopted European style and technique in his work. Namatjira was a member of the Western Arrernte people from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. He started painting at the age of 32, in a richly detailed watercolor style showing Australian landscape, which departed significantly from the chiefly abstract works and symbolism of the traditional Aboriginal arts. 

Although it is understood today that his landscapes are coded expressions of sacred knowledge and traditional sites, in the 1950s, his watercolor skills were seen as evidence of successful assimilation, granting him conditional Australian citizenship in 1957 that did not include his children or family. However, he was still prohibited from buying land and was sentenced to six months in prison for providing alcohol to the Aboriginal community (at the time, it was forbidden for Aboriginal people to consume or possess alcohol). He died after serving two months of his sentence. 

Rebecca Belmore

Among the leading American women artists with works in museum and other art institutions is Rebecca Belmore (b. 1960). Belmore is an internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary Indigenous artist based in Toronto, and a member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe). Belmore’s paintings draw vivid interconnections between people, land, and language and are rooted in the political and socio-economic realities of  Indigenous communities and their culture. She is also known for her performances and installation pieces that address important social and political issues. In 2005, she represented Canada at the Venice biennale. 

Kenojuak Ashevak

One of Canada’s most acclaimed graphic artists, Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013) was also a leading Inuit artist who worked in color pencils, soapstone, etchings, stonecut prints, watercolors, and acrylics. Born in the camp area of Ikirisaq, on south Baffin Island, Ashevak traveled from camp to camp in her youth. In the late 1950s, she started experimenting with carving and drawing, and since then, she has been included in almost every annual print collection. Her indigenou art, which she develops spontaneously, is the reflection of personal visions. 

Susan Point

A Musqueam Coast Salish artist, Susan Point (b.1952), works in the Coast Salish tradition. She makes sculptures and jewelry and has been commissioned for many public and private collections, including Vancouver International Airport, for which she made cedar, glass, and copper panels. She also received numerous awards and has participated in many group and solo exhibitions.

Many of her works are adaptations of traditional spindle whorl carvings into screen printing, which helped draw attention to the culture and traditions of her people. A major retrospective of her work was staged in the Vancouver Gallery in 2017. 

John Mawurndjul

Another leading Australian artist, John Mawurndjul (b. 1952), comes from the country of Kubukkan near Marrkolidjban. He is his country’s Djunkay and the Kurulk clan’s cultural manager and information keeper. With his art, Mawurndjul pays homage to previous Kuninjku artists who came before him, such as traditional rock painters who painted and etched stories into the rock for future generations. 

He expresses spiritual and cultural values in new ways using traditional motifs and is well recognized for his unique and original compositions based on the rarrk method, a traditional cross-hatching type of bark painting.