Cattle Brand c. 1936

J. Henry Marley made this drawing of a cattle brand, and I just love the confident way it’s been put down. It's so reduced, so stripped back, with a simple graphic quality that feels contemporary. I imagine Marley- I wonder if I can call him Henry? - carefully loading his brush with ink, or maybe he used a marker pen, and then, with a steady hand, committing the design to paper. You can almost feel the pressure he applied to the page to create this bold black mark. The form itself is intriguing. Is it a key? Is it a strange letter? Maybe Marley was interested in the way that abstract shapes can carry meaning and identity. This piece reminds me of Cy Twombly, and how he took forms from the everyday to develop his own lexicon of marks and gestures. There's a conversation across time here, with artists building on each other’s ideas. The wonderful thing about a drawing like this is that it invites us to think laterally, to make connections, and to find meaning in the most unexpected places.