The Islands 1961

Agnes Martin made this painting, "The Islands," using acrylic and graphite on canvas. The way she’s made these tiny marks, all in a grid, speaks to her approach as a kind of meditative process. Look at the surface – it’s so subtle, almost like a whisper. She’s got these really thin washes of paint, where you can still see the tooth of the canvas. Then, those little dots, like tiny islands floating in a sea of beige. I love how she creates this quiet rhythm with just a few simple elements. There’s one faint horizontal line about a third of the way down. It’s barely there, but it anchors the whole thing. Martin reminds me a bit of Sol LeWitt, but where he's all about the system, she’s all about the feeling. It’s not about perfection, but about the humanness, the imperfections. And that’s what makes it so beautiful.