Amy Bernstein reviews No Boundaries: Aboriginal Contemporary Abstract Painting at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, OR, on view through Aug 16, 2015.

Bernstein writes: "Walking into the exhibition space, I am met by a group of strange peers in the form of paintings. We are painters. We have not met before, but they speak in ways that I understand and with a wisdom that I did not know existed. They tell me that formal elements still hold an unearthly power even in such an advanced technological age and that real time is a clock marked only by birth and death. They say that to be honest in the depiction of nature is to be honest to its endless nuance and tangled complexity. They say that stylization is insufficient in the accuracy of its account; to make a rough map is to send someone in the wrong direction. They say that human rhythm is not of an exact meter but in fact imprecise. They say that color is a choice that demands attention."