Column Paintings 2004

These 'Column Paintings' by Robert Mangold, well, they're like color field meets line drawing, all on these tall vertical canvases. I can just imagine him in his studio, maybe listening to some cool jazz, carefully building up those subtle, muted colors, a yellow, a tan, a blue, not quite flat, but not really textured either. Then, he takes a graphite pencil and draws these flowing, curving lines that dance across the surface. I bet he was thinking about how shapes and lines can play with space, like how those lines seem to want to break free from the rectangle. It makes me think of the way Agnes Martin used lines. There's something so satisfying about how simple choices can lead to such a complex result. It’s all about the conversation between the artist and the canvas.