Angelina Pwerle's paintings are a mass of contradictions. Not large in size, they are vast in scale and painstakingly executed, dot by tiny dot, with the overall effect of effortlessness. Her paintings seem to be in a state of constant, restless movement, yet remaining perfectly still.
Every square centimetre is crammed with detail, yet they are almost completely empty.
And, although bursting with vibrant color, most of them, from a distance, appear monochrome. It is in the spaces between these seemingly irreconcilable opposites that meaning might be discovered. I'm sure if you sat down beside her as she squatted on the dusty red earth at Utopia, north of Alice Springs, carefully dotting an unstretched canvas, Pwerle would be able to tell you the stories of her bush-plum dreaming and to explain the complex cultural meanings behind her images. But the great triumph of these beautiful works is that they transcend the specifics of their making and offer themselves up to myriad interpretations. Pwerle creates voids, pregnant with possibilities, and invites us to fill them.