Night Sea 1963

Agnes Martin made this 'Night Sea' with acrylic and graphite on canvas. For Martin, making art was about a feeling, an experience, and you get the sense that this painting came about through a very meditative, repetitive process. The surface is all blue, a lovely almost denim like blue, with a very faint grid drawn across the surface. It’s a subtle thing, but you can see the lines, just barely, holding the space together. They give it structure, but they also give it a kind of, like, shimmery quality. And the blue itself, it’s not just flat, it has texture, it has nuance. Up close you can see all kinds of little variations and imperfections. Look closely at the upper left and you can see how the paint pools and gathers around the graphite lines. It's like the painting is breathing. It reminds me a bit of Sol LeWitt, with the lines and the grid, but much more emotional. Like she took the minimalism of the 60’s and brought some humanity back into it. It’s all about feeling, not about knowing.