Untitled 2002

This painting by Makinti Napanangka pulses with striated waves of yellow and cream. I can just imagine Makinti, brush in hand, letting the painting emerge through the rhythm of her mark-making. Doesn’t it make you wonder what it might have been like to create this, lost in the act of painting? I can imagine her standing there, perhaps with the canvas on the ground, working from all sides, letting the lines accumulate, each one a record of a single gesture. Look at the way the creamy lines on the top right seem to float, like a mirage in the desert heat. The paint isn’t too thick, not too thin – it’s just right, you know? It reminds me of Agnes Martin’s subtle grids and also of the way other Aboriginal artists use repetitive marks to map the landscape and evoke ancestral stories. Painting is really just an exchange, a conversation between artists across time and space. We are all just inspiring each other, trying to find new ways of seeing and being in the world.