Rain on the Mesa - New Mexico 1951

Adja Yunkers made this abstract landscape, ‘Rain on the Mesa – New Mexico’, with lithographic crayon and tusche wash. I can almost feel Yunkers working on the litho stone, building up layers of dark and light, scraping back to reveal hidden forms. He’s conjuring a space that is both real and imagined. Those floating white shapes could be clouds or maybe the crumpled remains of discarded paper from his studio floor. I imagine him wrestling with the material, pushing and pulling at the image until it reveals itself. See how the dark, jagged lines of the mesa contrast with the delicate washes of the sky. It reminds me of Rothko’s late works, where he was also exploring themes of darkness and light, absence and presence. Artists like Yunkers and Rothko were constantly pushing the boundaries of abstraction, searching for new ways to express the human condition, engaging in a visual conversation that stretches across time and space.