Group IX-SUW, The Swan, No. 1 1915

Hilma af Klint made this painting of two swans, in black and white, with oil paint. It's got this immediate feel, a kind of ying and yang thing, right? The way the paint is laid down, not trying to hide anything, feels so honest. Look at the surface, you can see the strokes, the texture, the physicality. There's this black swan, rising up out of the white, and above, the white swan coming down from the black. It's like they're mirroring each other, but not perfectly. The point where the beaks meet is *electric*; it's the only place Klint uses those pops of red and blue. The contrast between the swans is striking, but they're also totally interdependent. You can see echoes of this contrast in the work of Agnes Martin, who was also interested in the spiritual potential of abstraction. For me, it's about opposites coexisting, maybe even needing each other. Art as a conversation, not a lecture.