on the right - Rose 1966 by Agnes Martin (1912-2004)
"My formats are square, but the grids are never absolutely square; they are rectangles, a bit off the square, making a sort of contradiction, a dissonance, though I don't set out to do it that way. When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square, destroys its power." (Agnes Martin)
While living in New York between 1957 and 1967, Agnes Martin began to experiment with symmetrical compositions comprising circles, lines and squares, in which she was influenced by artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Ellsworth Kelly. In her minimal and meticulous grid paintings, dense with gestural markings and unmistakable tracings of the artist's hand, Marin uses the smallest possible amount of pure pigment to make the palest, yet purist colour. Her luminous fields of soft and pale washes of colour are covered by her hand-drawn horizontal and vertical pencil lines. In their purity and meditative quality, the canvases suggest a spiritualism that reflects Martin's interest in nature and Eastern religions.
"Geometry has nothing to do with it. It's all about finding perfection and perfection can't be found in something so rigid as geometry. You have to go elsewhere for that, in between the lines."
on the right - Rose 1966 by Agnes Martin (1912-2004)
"My formats are square, but the grids are never absolutely square; they are rectangles, a bit off the square, making a sort of contradiction, a dissonance, though I don't set out to do it that way. When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square, destroys its power." (Agnes Martin)
While living in New York between 1957 and 1967, Agnes Martin began to experiment with symmetrical compositions comprising circles, lines and squares, in which she was influenced by artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Ellsworth Kelly. In her minimal and meticulous grid paintings, dense with gestural markings and unmistakable tracings of the artist's hand, Marin uses the smallest possible amount of pure pigment to make the palest, yet purist colour. Her luminous fields of soft and pale washes of colour are covered by her hand-drawn horizontal and vertical pencil lines. In their purity and meditative quality, the canvases suggest a spiritualism that reflects Martin's interest in nature and Eastern religions.
"Geometry has nothing to do with it. It's all about finding perfection and perfection can't be found in something so rigid as geometry. You have to go elsewhere for that, in between the lines."