Untitled (Alhalkere) 1989

This field of ochre and brown and cream dots is by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and it probably came into being through a kind of dance between her hand and the surface, maybe even a form of meditation. I can almost imagine her kneeling down and patiently placing each dot, one by one, shifting and emerging through intuition. It’s interesting to think about what she was thinking when she made this, what she wanted to express. The paint looks quite thin, washy almost, and that allows this constant rhythm and movement. Each individual brush mark—those clusters of color—communicates feeling in its own unique way. I love how this piece fits into her wider practice, how it speaks to her engagement with landscape and the memory of place, not so different, in some ways, to the mark-making in Agnes Martin's grids. Artists are always in conversation with each other across time, inspiring each other’s creativity. And this is what painting is, isn't it? A form of expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple readings.