Desert Painters of Australia Part II at Gagosian

On view: July 26–September 6, 2019.

Indigenous Austrailian painting is having a moment. Top galleries and collectors are flocking to the magnetism of these Indigenous artists, who, after a forced displacement in the 1960s, began painting on canvas, literalizing the artistic forms, stories, and geographies of their ancestors. This is the last week to catch a selection of these paintings—many of which are from the collection of Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield—at Gagosian Beverly Hills. The paintings are created flat on the floor, and as such, have no compositional top or bottom. Instead, they are made up of dense swirling patterns that topple across the canvas and cause the eye to dance. Densely layered dots are a main motif throughout, and though the subject matter is tied to a specific ancestral message, the paintings feel freshly contemporary and full of heart—a breath of fresh air in a high-end gallery like Gagosian.