Bush Hen Dreaming 1997

Abie Loy Kemarre made this 'Bush Hen Dreaming' painting with tiny strokes of ochre paint. I am imagining the surface tension of the canvas, her brush, and the paint. I love thinking about the labor of this work. I can imagine her slowly building up these marks. I am thinking about the repetitive, almost meditative, process of applying each dot, each line, each stippled mark. It makes me think of Agnes Martin or Hilma af Klint, the way they would have painstakingly created their paintings. What was she thinking about? Is this how the Bush Hen sees the world? That single gold circle almost vibrates against the granular surface. The marks here map out a territory, maybe something both real and imagined. I wonder how it relates to her other work and the traditions of Aboriginal painting. The ways artists influence each other across time is pretty incredible. What a painting.