Untitled (White Flower) 1961

Agnes Martin’s “Untitled (White Flower)” is a painting where tiny horizontal dashes line up in rows, stacked and packed across the surface of a muted pinkish-beige square. I imagine Agnes, ever so gently, coaxing each line into being, each one a barely-there mark, and the whole thing about a kind of calm… It kinda reminds me of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, where the idea is more about the system than the hand. But here, I see a world of difference! Agnes is so human! Each tiny mark seems to breathe and, while not exactly shaky, it feels ever so light-handed. Each line is its own decision, a gentle pulse in a field of quietude. Martin and LeWitt are like two sides of a coin, exploring what can be expressed through simple geometric forms. You can get lost in this painting, and find yourself in a state of open thought, a place of possibility...