Pond 1 1975

Warren Rohrer made this painting, Pond 1, a sixty-by-sixty-inch square of colour and line, sometime in the 20th century, presumably with a brush and paint. It looks like an exercise in quiet observation. Rohrer’s making art by doing, a process of adding and subtracting, of layering and revealing. The surface is built up from thin horizontal lines, a kind of delicate mesh, with subtle shifts in tone. Look closely, and you'll see the way the peach on the right meets the gray on the left. It's not a hard edge, but a gradual transition, like the meeting of water and sky on the horizon. The paint is thinly applied, allowing the texture of the canvas to peek through. It's like Rohrer is whispering a secret, inviting us to lean in and listen closely. Rohrer reminds me Agnes Martin, another artist who found power in simplicity. Both artists invite us to slow down, to notice the beauty in the everyday, and to appreciate the ambiguity that makes art so endlessly fascinating.