Untitled (Abstract) 1937

Agnes Lyall made this untitled drawing with ink on paper, and it feels like a spontaneous overflow of mark-making. I imagine Lyall feeling her way through the composition with the pen, line by line. The ink almost seems to dance across the page. There's a kind of nervous energy in the looping lines and dangling shapes, like notes in a musical composition. The forms remind me of Calder’s wire sculptures, hovering between representation and abstraction. I bet Lyall was exploring ways to capture movement and rhythm in a static medium. The blank space around the lines is just as important, giving the shapes room to breathe and resonate. It’s like she’s inviting us to complete the picture in our own minds. These types of explorations are part of a shared conversation between artists, each one building on the discoveries of those who came before. It's all about finding new ways to express something that words can't quite capture.