Linda Arts / Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin 
Night Sea 
1963
oil and gold leaf on canvas
183 x 183 cm

While living in New York between 1957 and 1967, Agnes Martin (1912-2004) began to experiment with symmetrical compositions comprising circles and squares under the influence of artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Ellsworth Kelly. Her grid paintings, which some critics linked to the machine-edged Minimalist movement, are actually examples of Abstract Expressionism, dense with gestural markings and unmistakable traces of the artist’s hand. In their purity and meditative quality, the canvases suggest a spiritualism that reflects Martin’s interest in nature (particularly the desert landscapes of New Mexico) and Eastern religions, notably Daoism. The paintings created after her return to Taos in 1967 became increasingly ethereal, the grids sometimes so faint that they seemed to be fading into a shimmering mist.

 

Linda Arts (NL) 
Untitled #213 
2009
oil on woodpanel
60 x 90 cm 
www.lindaarts.nl