Alatyite (Spinifex) Dreaming 1995

Emily Kame Kngwarreye made this painting, "Alatyite (Spinifex) Dreaming," with what looks like acrylic on canvas, and the colour palette of earth tones against a bright sky-blue background gives it a real sense of place. The surface is alive with these dabs and dots, it's like she's conjuring the spinifex grass right in front of us. The paint isn’t overworked, but there’s a rawness that’s almost geologic. Look at the way she builds up the ochre-colored clusters. Each one is like a little world of texture, and they bump and grind against each other like tectonic plates, it has that feeling of something in motion. Kngwarreye’s work reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin, in that both artists use repetition and simple forms to evoke something vast and deeply felt. Like a visual mantra, Kngwarreye’s painting invites us to get lost in the rhythm of her mark-making and consider how art, in its very essence, is about the ongoing process of seeing and feeling.