Bum-Thumb Rock, Ploumanach, Brittany 1936

Eileen Agar took this photograph of a rock in Brittany, and it’s like she captured a moment of the earth just being itself. What strikes me is the texture; you can almost feel the rough surface of the stone. It’s so tactile, so immediate. The contrast between light and shadow gives it this weight, a real sense of gravity. Look at the way the light catches the top of the rock, making it almost glow against the darker background. That's what Agar does so well, she finds the extraordinary in the ordinary. She makes you see the world differently, not just as it is, but as it could be. It reminds me a little of some of Brancusi’s sculptures, that same interest in form and natural materials. Both artists transform the mundane into something monumental. Art is an ongoing conversation across time.