Jade Akamarre (born Jade Torres) is an Alyawarre/Anmatyerre artist, the Founding Director of Pwerle Gallery, and a fourth-generation painter from a family that has shaped the story of Australian Aboriginal art for over forty years. She is the great-granddaughter of Minnie Pwerle, granddaughter of Barbara Weir and was raised alongside her great-great aunt Emily Kame Kngwarreye - three of the most significant names in Australian art history.
Jade paints under her skin name Akamarre. In 2021, her grandmother Barbara entrusted her with her first Dreaming 'Atnwengerrp, My Grandmother's Country (Awelye)' which Jade now renders as aerial “talking maps” of Country: tracklines, ceremony grounds and seasonal change, painted in single-pass linear dot work with a palette drawn directly from the land itself.
A VOGUE Australia Game Changer (2018), InDaily 40 Under 40 finalist (2021) and former Brand South Australia board member, Jade has brought her family's story to brands including Yamaha, Samsung, Porsche and American Express, while continuing to lead the gallery her father began with DACOU.
Most of Jade's work is created as a custom commission. Because of the depth, scale and time her pieces demand, she works closely and directly with each client to create a painting made specifically for them, their space and their story.
See how commissioning works below.
I was Dad's shadow at DACOU. Before I could even walk properly, I was there sitting in my nappy on the studio floor, watching my family paint. I'd grab whatever I could find, a paintbrush, a scrap of cardboard, and try to copy them. I was two years old, sitting beside my great-great aunt Emily Kame Kngwarreye, always watching, always fascinated, trying to do what she did.
That's where this all started for me, long before I understood what any of it meant.
I come from four generations of artists from the Utopia region in the Northern Territory. Our family's legacy as painters began in the 1980s through my great-grandmother, Minnie Pwerle, my grandmother, Barbara Weir, and my great-great aunt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye: three women now recognised among the most significant artists in Australian history. Growing up surrounded by their paintings, their stories and their connection to Country shaped me in ways I didn't even realise at the time. Art wasn't just something we did, it was something we lived. Every painting carried knowledge, a story and a responsibility to keep that connection alive.
I grew up surrounded by an absolute powerhouse of legacies: Minnie Pwerle, Barbara Weir, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, women whose names now sit in the history of Australian art itself. Being raised inside that legacy, watching it up close every single day, is not something I take lightly. It is the foundation of everything I do. I went on to spend a decade in the fashion industry before art pulled me back. The more I learned, the more I understood that this wasn't just something I loved, it was something I needed to do. Choosing art as my path wasn't a career decision. It was a way of honouring my family, my culture and everything that has been entrusted to me.
Jade's connection to art and culture was recognised early. At just five years old, three years after she first sat beside her great-great aunt Emily Kame Kngwarreye as a toddler, Jade's painting Smiling Down was selected for Happy Birthday Earth, Children Helping Children, an exhibition for the international charity Kids Earth Fund. Her work hung alongside roughly 350 paintings by children from around the world at Sydney's Queen Victoria Building, with pieces auctioned to raise money for the charity. The story was featured in WHO magazine at the time, and Jade also appeared in a Channel 7 interview about the honour.
Every painting Jade creates takes significant time to produce, these are not quick studio pieces. Because of the depth of work, the scale she paints at, and the cultural and personal meaning embedded in every canvas, the majority of Jade's practice is now commission-based. A commissioned work allows Jade to create a piece that is genuinely yours: sized to your wall, attuned to your palette and carrying a story that means something to you and your space.
If you've seen Jade's work and want a piece of your own, commissioning directly with her is the best way to do that.
I paint under my skin name Akamarre, a kinship title that carries relationships, obligations to Country, and ceremonial roles. In April 2021, my grandmother Barbara Weir formally passed me my first Dreaming to hold and paint: Atnwengerrp - My Grandmother's Country (Awelye).
When I close my eyes, I see Atnwengerrp from above. The bush tucker, the songlines, the sacred sites, the deep reds that shift through the day. I project all of that into every piece I produce. My paintings are aerial “talking maps” of that Country - tracklines, ceremony grounds and teaching places that emerge the longer you look. Every line is laid in a single pass, the way a story is told, nothing is pre-marked or planned out in advance. Colour comes directly from home: purples from seasonal wildflowers, deep reds and natural tones from ochre, whites recalling quartz hills and ceremonial markings, oranges for sandhills and pigment. What you see on the canvas is what is walked and remembered.
Each piece carries the same title and the same Country, but the palette shifts with season and weather, Country after rain, cool-burn regrowth, dry-time seed. Every canvas is both a personal connection to my family and Country and a tribute to everyone who walked that land before us.
When I close my eyes, I see Atnwengerrp from an aerial view. Nourishing bush tucker, the songlines, sacred sites and deep red colours that evolve throughout the day. I project that into every Dreaming I produce. Each piece has a deep connection to Country and pays tribute to all family members who walked the land before us. It's an honour and privilege to take what I've learnt from my elders onto canvas.
— Jade Akamarre
Entering the art world professionally at 21, Jade brought a lifelong immersion in Aboriginal art together with more than a decade of experience in fashion and luxury, skills in storytelling, brand and presentation that she now applies to both her own studio practice and to Pwerle Gallery, which she founded in 2015. The gallery continues the work originally begun by her father, Fred Torres, through DACOU and remains one of Australia's only privately Aboriginal owned galleries operating without government funding, dedicated solely to representing artists from Jade's own family and community.
Jade is a vocal advocate for cultural sovereignty and provenance in the Australian art world, working to ensure Aboriginal artists lead their own narratives and benefit fairly from their own work.
Jade is also available as a guest speaker, drawing on her own story, her family's living legacy and her experience navigating culture, business and brand at the highest level. To enquire about booking Jade to speak at your event or organisation, visit the Guest Speaking page.
Jade is the ongoing brand ambassador for Yamaha Australia, Samsung Australia and Clearlight Sauna, working consistently with each brand on campaigns and collaborations that bring Aboriginal art and storytelling to new audiences nationally.
In 2025, Jade was invited to collaborate with The Block contestants Robby and Mat on their House 5 living and dining room, for the show's milestone 1,000th episode. Working to an extremely tight deadline, Jade completed a commanding 2.3m x 1.3m painting in just two and a half days, with the finished canvas flown from Adelaide to Melbourne and installed on the feature wall in time for the Sunday night reveal. The piece was widely credited as one of the standout elements that helped secure Robby and Mat the week's win, bringing contemporary Aboriginal art into millions of Australian living rooms in a single broadcast. Jade has since released the work as a limited-edition print, the Daylesford Dreaming.
As part of an ongoing ambassador partnership with Yamaha Motor Australia, Jade hand-painted a custom Yamaha GP19HO WaveRunner with her Dreaming, transforming the watercraft into a moving canvas carrying her family's story and her connection to Country. The collaboration, filmed as the campaign Travelling Between Worlds, marked Yamaha's global ART for Human Possibilities platform and the brand's 100-year anniversary, pairing 60,000 years of cultural storytelling with a century of Yamaha innovation. The campaign film went on to win a Gold Award from the Australian Cinematographers Society NSW.
Jade has worked with the Sydney Opera House to present Badu Gili, a nightly light installation that projects First Nations artwork onto the Opera House's eastern Bennelong sail at sundown including artwork by her great-grandmother, Minnie Pwerle, displayed on one of the country's most recognisable cultural landmarks.
In 2017–2018, Pwerle Gallery collaborated with acclaimed Australian fashion label Aje on the Awelye Resort collection, translating Minnie Pwerle's artwork into the brand's silhouettes and fabrications. The collection was widely praised for its sensitive, considered approach to working with Aboriginal art and culture, and went on to secure multiple international stockists.
Building on her Porsche collaboration, Jade announced her own clothing line, the Akamarre capsule collection, a denim-led range inspired by the Porsche Taycan and the painting it informed, Atnwengerrp - Dreaming in My Grandmother's Country. The collection marked Jade's expansion from painter into designer, carrying her family's storytelling from canvas into wearable form. The collection is still currently being worked on and planning to launch in 2027.
Jade's work and creative direction have been engaged by some of Australia's most recognised brands, including:
Jade's artistry and advocacy have been featured in VOGUE Australia, Harper's BAZAAR Australia, Elle Australia, and Marie Claire Australia. In 2025, she authored an eight-page feature for Marie Claire Australia - published online and in the printed magazine, profiling First Nations artists for NAIDOC Week, reflecting on her own upbringing and the next generation of Aboriginal artists shaping the global stage.
Read more about it here: https://www.marieclaire.com.au/life/home/first-nations-artists-jade-akamarre/
Jade serves as Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Governance and Advisory Committee for autoimmune rheumatic disease research at Monash University, a committee made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, doctors and researchers, working alongside Dr Fabien B. Vincent.
Jade has also been appointed Chief Investigator on a related Monash research project: Improving Understanding of Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This research addresses a significant and well-documented gap, autoimmune rheumatic diseases other than lupus remain critically under-researched in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, despite the disproportionate impact of related autoimmune conditions on these communities.
Jade's role bridges cultural governance and medical research, ensuring the work is led in genuine partnership with community.
Jade has been part of SoFL (Stories of Female Leadership), run through Jawun, for more than eight years. SoFL is a network that connects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, corporate and government women leaders, bringing together over 200 influential women from community, corporate and government backgrounds to strengthen pathways toward female leadership nationally. The network holds a national convention every two years.
Jade's long-running involvement has built some of her strongest professional relationships, connections formed through shared experience, mutual support and a common commitment to lifting up the next generation of Aboriginal women in leadership. Over eight years of trips and gatherings interstate, SoFL has become one of the most personally meaningful parts of Jade's life outside the studio.
In February 2023, Jade was appointed to the re-established Brand SA Board, a group of South Australians tasked with championing the state's image, reputation and businesses nationally and globally. Jade joined the board as Director of Pwerle Gallery and a proud Alyawarre woman and artist, alongside fellow board members including acclaimed chef Callum Hann and award-winning journalist Rebecca Morse.
Beyond her professional commitments, Jade donates her own artwork to causes that align with her values, supporting women, children and community organisations doing it tough.
In March 2025, Jade donated her artwork Atnwengerrp - Dreaming in My Grandmother's Country to the BankSA Foundation Fringe Dinner live auction during the Adelaide Fringe Festival. The piece raised $10,000 on the night, contributing to a total of over $165,000 raised at the event to support children and young people across South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Jade has also donated her work Dreaming in My Grandmother's Country to Women's Community Shelters (WCS) for a silent auction held alongside a special event featuring human rights barrister Jennifer Robinson and WCS CEO Annabelle Daniel OAM, hosted by journalist Sarrah Le Marquand. The event, held with support from the Macquarie Group Foundation, raised vital funds for frontline services supporting women and children escaping violence.
A short video below of Jade speaking about the artwork and what it represents accompanies the donation.
