In God's Country c. 1940

Edmund Brucker made "In God's Country" with what looks like graphite, and I just want to dive right into the process it took to make this. The texture here is so velvety, like a well-worn path, and the darks are really dark, almost like tar. But it's the way Brucker uses the graphite that gets me. Look at the mountains, how each stroke builds up, layer by layer, to create this sense of depth and weight. It's like he's sculpting with his pencil, pushing and pulling the light to create these forms. The mark making is so smooth and consistent that at first you would think it’s a lithograph, but then you see the soft grain of the graphite coming through. It makes me think of Agnes Martin and how she built up these layers of translucent color to create these shimmering surfaces. Both artists are working with repetition and accumulation, but with very different results. It’s art as an ongoing conversation, where each artist brings their own unique voice and perspective to the table.