Body Painting (White on Black) 2005

Abie Loy Kemarre made this painting, Body Painting (White on Black), and I’m interested in how she has embraced such a limited palette. It looks like she set herself the challenge of seeing how much could be achieved with just black and white! The surface is built up with layers of these thin white lines over the dark ground. They remind me of the work of Agnes Martin, although the grid here is less rigid, more organic, like a collection of marks or a kind of personal handwriting. Looking closely at these white lines, you can see the texture of the paint, a slight impasto, and you can almost imagine the movement of Kemarre’s hand as she applied the paint. The effect is strangely calming, a kind of visual meditation. Thinking about the title, maybe that’s the relationship to body painting: a slow, considered ritual of mark-making. For me, this piece suggests how much can be said through the simplest of gestures.