Four positions of nonrepresentational painting from Iceland and New Zealand relate to classical positions of modernist abstract painting. The character of this reference--with Stephen Bambury the recourse to Malevich, with Judy Millar the relationship to Pollock, with Ingólfur Arnarsson the investigation of the category of the sublime, and with Tumi Magnússon the reference to Barnett Newman--is completely different: affirmative or critical, ironic or contradicting.