I rediscovered the power of abstract painting on a trip to New Mexico. From high above Albuquerque, the tawny, light-reflecting landscape stretched below the solarised blue, with long straight highways looking as if they’d been scratched out by a fingernail. Mountain ranges came into view, and discrete volcanic cones, and I saw the terminus of the Sangre de Cristo where it met the plain. Soon enough I was on the ground and in the mountains, driving a monstrous SUV – I didn’t realise the dimensions of what I had reserved online – which I was later (grudgingly) grateful for when my Airbnb turned out to lie at the end of a two-mile dirt road: a converted shipping container sitting out on a wide expanse of sagebrush. The first thing I thought of was lightning. And every time I reached for the door handle, I did get a shock of static electricity. The wind was dry and fierce. There was a red flag warning on the weather app, for wildfire hazard.…