Chanel Outside Markarrki 2006

Sally Gabori made this painting, Chanel Outside Markarrki, with paint, and a way of seeing that just bursts right through. Look how the shapes bump up against each other, the black, red, pink, and lavender, it feels like the colours are having a conversation. Notice the surface, it's uneven, you can see the brushstrokes, the little bumps and ridges of the paint. It’s a record of the artist's hand, the way she moved the paint across the surface. There’s a patch of lavender made up of tiny dots, almost like a field of flowers seen from above. Gabori's work reminds me a bit of Joan Miró, that same sense of playful abstraction, of creating a world that feels both familiar and dreamlike. And like Miró, Gabori shows us that art isn't about perfection, it's about feeling, about seeing the world in a new and unexpected way.