Cattle Brand c. 1936

J. Henry Marley made this mysterious sign, Cattle Brand, with dark ink on paper. I love imagining the action of making this work: how a brushstroke can be so direct yet, at the same time, so incredibly allusive. It makes me think of Adolph Gottlieb or maybe even Franz Kline, who both were into primitive mark-making—and I wonder if Marley knew their work? This sign becomes something else on paper. The weight of the ink, the slight waver in the lines. You get a sense of the hand, you know? The artist trying to capture something essential about the world and distill it into a graphic symbol. What's so interesting about an image like this is that it has a real function, but on the page it's also totally useless and becomes something that asks bigger questions. Ultimately, artists look at each other’s work and find inspiration in different places. Every mark, every gesture is part of a larger conversation.