Aran 2005

Sean Scully made this photograph, Aran, thinking about the way things come together, the way something gets made. I imagine him seeing it there, that wall, walking by, and thinking, "Aha, that's it!" What's so fascinating about a wall? Well, for one, it's about compression, that gray squeezing, the weight of one thing on another. You can feel the pressure of it, can't you? It's not just stacked, it's fit, like how tiles sit in my paintings. Scully's always been great at taking something super simple and turning it into this deep feeling. A kind of metaphor for how we build our lives, piece by piece. It reminds me of Agnes Martin, that quiet hum, or maybe some Brice Marden. The way these artists find a structure, then let the feeling just soak right through it. It's like they're all having this slow, beautiful conversation, reaching across time and space. Making something solid, that's also light as air.