Yet something glaringly obvious stands out: despite the authoritative title Australian Abstract, the book conservatively equates abstract art with painting, disregarding a plethora of Australian innovators in video, sculpture and photography that would truly explain where abstract art is today.

Beyond a misleading title, there is the decision not to include any Indigenous artists. Creswell Bell explains, “I have consciously opted not to include Indigenous artists as it was my personal feeling that to include work so rich in historical and cultural significance of country is reductive at worst or tokenistic at best.” Bell doesn’t want to “assign a genre based on Western art idiolect”, briefly acknowledging that Indigenous art has been colonised and misread by the label “abstract”.

But for a book branding itself Australian Abstract, it’s now in the position of leaving out First Nations creators altogether, rather than rethinking this category, and delving into difficult conversations about art and colonialism, which seem pertinent today.

This is symptomatic of a lacking historical framework. While the book isn’t aiming to be historical, instead focusing on the “now”, the drawback is that there’s little cultural contextualisation that could prompt more delicate understandings.

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For instance, the book includes artists such as Suzanne Archer, who with a six-decade practice is part of abstract history: what did it truly mean for Archer to paint in the 1970s?

Many artists also say that figurative art is preferred in Australia, with Helen Eager noting how, “Australia has a very narrative history and so abstraction has always been on the outside”. It may have been interesting to explore this history further, especially to better understand abstraction today when many included artists, such as Lauren O’Connor, Louise Gresswell and Emily Ferretti, among others, are calling for a less masculine, gentler abstraction that’s spiritual and nourishing — which seems to define many painters right now.

Instead, Creswell Bell has centred the artists’ process in what is an undeniably visually spectacular book. I will always defend such books as aesthetic objects in themselves, as something to communally peruse and a statement of one’s interests (although this later point can be co-opted as consumerist aestheticisation of our personalities). I became interested in art, as a child in Brisbane, because of books such as Australian Abstract. Bell clearly embraces the moral that “art is for anyone” and genuinely communicates this with care.

Today Australian arts publishing seems split between books such as Australian Abstract (this book is one of five by Creswell Bell exploring a certain aesthetic theme) and overly academic tomes, disregarding an in-between literary space. This is internationally filled by the conceptualised yet accessible writing of people such as Olivia Laing and Jennifer Higgie, who weave together interpretation, artistic practice and art history. Perhaps Australian publishers aren’t willing to take the risk.