Milkscape 1983

Abdul Mati Klarwein made *Milkscape* with what looks like oil paint, and wow, what a trip. The whole painting shimmers with an almost feverish intensity. I imagine him, layering on these tiny, repetitive marks, building up this landscape through pure, obsessive touch. It’s like he’s trying to capture not just what he sees, but the feeling of being inside a dream, or maybe a hallucination. Look at how the red vibrates against the white of the cascading water, pulling you down the mountain. It’s kind of hypnotic, right? You can see a debt to artists like Gustav Klimt here, but also something totally unique. Klarwein, like all of us, stands on the shoulders of giants, but he's also doing his own thing, pushing painting into new territories. Painting is like that, an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time. It's an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity.