This Walters is unusual in that it combines an idea the artist first had in 1956, bought to life in a medium favoured he in 1978. Here we see the successful revisiting of influences from an earlier period. Perhaps the artist found it necessary to examine the pure abstraction of his 1950s work as a means of achieving a natural liberation from the 1970s Koru paintings. Walters' primary concern has always been with the relationship between a fairly restricted number of shapes which he has combined and recombined throughout his career. His treatment of the Maori koru motif represents the most well known example. In 1950 Walters viewed paintings by Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg at the Galerie Rene in Paris. During that time he saw works by Russian artists, Malevich and Vasarely along with those of Auguste Herbin. Looking at such paintings confirmed Walter's desire to continue working in the spare, reductive style which naturally appealed to him.

Soon after his return to New Zealand Walters began experimenting with Polynesian and Melanesian abstract patterns. The spatial relationship of each work was planned by use of the papier colle technique. This involved a careful moving of individual elements in various combinations until the ideal was achieved. Only then did the artist make a painting on canvas.