My Father's Country (Thundi / Big River) 2008

Sally Gabori painted "My Father's Country (Thundi / Big River)" with bold strokes and a palette that sings of her homeland. It's like she's letting the colors do the talking, each hue a word in a story of place and memory. The paint has this beautiful, almost chalky quality, especially in that intense blue at the bottom - it feels raw and unmixed. You can practically see the bristles dancing across the canvas. Then, those sharp, almost brutal juxtapositions of orange, yellow, and red, they just grab you. Check out how she edges those colors. They nearly buzz against each other. It reminds me a bit of Milton Avery, in its simple shapes and joyful abstraction. Gabori takes us somewhere real, her vision of home not a literal picture, but a feeling, a breath, a memory. It's a reminder that painting is really about feeling your way through the world, one color at a time.