The Dove, Nr. 12 1915

Hilma af Klint made this painting, The Dove, sometime around the early 20th century, using oils and maybe tempera. I can imagine her in the studio, patiently layering these colours to arrive at this striking combination of lemon yellow, silvery white, and flashes of gold. It's a slow, deliberate process, with plenty of room for adjustment and the odd mistake along the way. I wonder if she knew she was paving the way for so many artists who would come after her? Was she trying to work out the mysteries of the universe? What I love about this painting is its open-endedness. The surface has a kind of glow to it, and the zodiac signs are like a personal language, each stroke a thought, each colour a feeling. I can feel her searching. Like so many painters, af Klint was in dialogue with those who came before her, building on their experiments while blazing her own trail. Painting can be an embodied expression, an embrace of ambiguity, and a site of ongoing conversation.