Untitled (Wildflower Dreaming) 1992

Emily Kame Kngwarreye made this painting, Untitled (Wildflower Dreaming), with acrylic on canvas. You can almost see how the work was built up, little dot by little dot. It's all about the making, the doing, the seeing. The surface buzzes. The warmth of the red and orange hues – it’s like looking into fire, but fire that is alive with tiny blooms. See how the dots cluster and spread? Some are dense, almost merging, while others stand alone, little beacons of color. There is a rhythm, a pulse, that seems to come from deep within the earth. Kngwarreye, like Agnes Martin, had a way of making paintings that felt both ancient and utterly new. They show us that painting can be a way of dreaming, of remembering, and of seeing the world anew.