Etel Adnan was a formidable poet, playwright, essayist and visual artist. Her visual vocabulary was made manifest in abstract paintings, which adopted a distinct form of lyrical expression—replacing words with intersecting lines, shapes, textures and colour. Adnan’s calculated abstract paintings were produced almost solely with a palette knife, transferring paint directly from tube to canvas. Inspired by artist Kazimir Malevich’s obsession with the spiritual and mystical, Adnan’s art evokes the relationships offered and conferred in a visual encounter with time—be it a longing glance, a searing after-image or a studied observation