Night Sea 1963

Agnes Martin made Night Sea with acrylic and graphite on canvas, but when, exactly, no one seems to know. The painting seems to be about a cobalt blue sea, just at night, but it's not just blue, it's also greyed out with graphite, isn't it? I can imagine Agnes Martin making it, on the floor, maybe, walking around it, thinking about it. She starts with a light canvas and a precise grid – but a grid that shimmers! It's so hard to make a grid shimmer, and I love it. It's like she’s saying, "Here’s something so precise, but the graphite takes it somewhere else." The hand-drawn lines are so deliberate but they’re not perfect. Like all of us, Agnes wanted to find the space between perfection and imperfection. Maybe that’s what “night sea” feels like. It's deep. I wonder, was she thinking about the sea as the place to be, or the place to cross? Painting can be about where you're at, and also where you hope to be.