In the manner of Hilma af Klint
Swedish, 1862–1944
Evolution, No. 9: Charge, 2026
Tempera and oil on paper and canvas
300 × 240 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.12.5
A column of lozenges climbs the middle of the picture, each holding a small snail-shell spiral, and they fill from grey at the bottom through pink and blue to gold at the top. It reads as a soul evolving, and as a battery charging. Af Klint's evolution paintings move the soul upwards through colour in exactly this way. She never had to wait at twenty per cent.
The brief
A vertical stack of pastel lozenges connected by thin lines, each holding a small snail spiral, filling from grey at the bottom to gold at the top. Early twentieth-century spiritual abstraction, large diagrammatic compositions of spirals, concentric circles, petals and snail shells in pale pink, egg yellow, sky blue and lilac on a cream ground, delicate line work with small lettering-like marks, symmetrical mystical schemas, tempera flatness with visible pencil underdrawing. Museum photograph of the painting on canvas, flat even lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
