Untitled Drawing A#5 - 87 1987

Stephen Antonakos made this untitled drawing in 1987, and right away you can see his marks are built up like he's building a wall or something. It's all process, the whole thing. The drawing is mostly this dark, velvety field. It's so worked, built up layer by layer; you can almost feel the texture, like a dark cloud or a shadowy wall. Then you've got these bright, geometric shapes cutting through the darkness: a bold red cross and a curved magenta line. The cross feels like a sign, a marker, and that magenta curve almost looks like a neon tube bending light, so, so good! Antonakos loved neon, and you can see that love pouring out of him here. It's like he's asking, what does it mean to see and be seen? To find light in the dark, like, Agnes Martin finding god in a line. It is this that makes art so great; a conversation, an ongoing question, and an embrace of endless possibilities.