Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin is one of those artists were I look at their work and think "I could have done this!". The only problem here is that I didn't. She is an abstract minimalist, and while she does have some other works, I focused primarily on her squares and lines. Below is posted an untitled watercolor from the early 1980's.

I am not normally a fan of abstract art, so I was surprised to find myself drawn to her work. I do not look at it to analyze it or find a deeper meaning, but simply to look and pick up the details that I missed the first time. I think one of the reasons that I did take a second look was that she has a tendency to use a square format, which is a tendency that I share. While trying to break myself away from it, I always love to make things neat and symmetrical, as does she.

Much of Martin's work seems to fade into the background, due to the pale or neutral tones used. Were I to be attempting to recreate the untitled work posted above, I most likely would have used more vibrant, saturated hues. I do not know how Martin painted this work, but it looks like it was painted on strips of canvas which were then glued down to a square sheet. The lines formed by the edges of each strip add contrast to the work, as do the washed out segments of each strip. Were a more vibrant color to be used, there would need to be variation added some other way.