Kintore Two Women Hair String Ceremony 2005

Makinti Napanangka made this painting, Kintore Two Women Hair String Ceremony, with ochre probably sometime in the 2000s. I love to imagine her squatting down, with her brush, applying the paint in these amazing parallel lines. I reckon she started on one side and then just built it up, line by line, you can feel the rhythm. The ochre gives it this earthiness, this sense of being connected to the land. It’s not just abstract marks, it’s like she's telling a story, a ceremony, a real moment. She's creating a kind of map. I love how she varies the color too – some lines are lighter, some darker, creating this subtle vibration across the surface. It reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin, but with a completely different sensibility. There's something primal about it, like she's tapping into something ancient and deeply felt. And it’s all there in the paint, in the rhythm of the lines.