Mourning Story 1991

Emily Kame Kngwarreye made "Mourning Story" with paint, building up layers of tiny dots. Just imagine her, patiently dabbing the canvas, each dot a tiny universe of color. The painting is full of pinks, blues, and blacks, like a bruise healing, or maybe a sunset after a storm. The dots are so close together, they create a shimmering effect, like heat rising off the land. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the surface, guided by memory and feeling. It reminds me of Agnes Martin's grids, but looser, more organic, like something grown rather than built. I wonder what Kngwarreye was thinking as she made this? Was she remembering someone she had lost? Was she thinking about the land and its stories? The beauty of painting is that it allows for all these questions, without giving any easy answers. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, echoing and answering each other across time and space.