Untitled Drawing M#2 - 93 1993

Stephen Antonakos made this untitled drawing, M#2-93, with some kind of marker on paper. There’s a ground of orange, with a cross shape floating in the middle. This orange ground, it's not a flat wash, it looks like many tiny strokes layered on top of each other, giving it this kind of vibrating energy. It’s a simple composition, but the handmade, repetitive mark making creates a lot of texture. You can see the way the marker drags and skips across the paper. The black cross sits on top of that orange, a strong contrast. Antonakos was really interested in simple geometric forms. He used them a lot in his neon sculptures. This feels like a study for something bigger, maybe a sculpture, a way of thinking through the possibilities of form and color, but also line and texture. It reminds me of Sol Lewitt, but maybe with more feeling. Ultimately, art is like a visual conversation across time, right?