Grass

Grass is a quintessential Agnes Martin work, employing a grid on a large, almost white format. Executed by the artist's hand with pencil lines over thin washes of acrylic paint, Grass does not try to hide the artist's technique. Traces of her hand's unsteadiness are perceptible, which contributes to the quiet emotional expression in her work. At a close inspection the materiality of the work is even apparent. However when viewed from a distance, surface details dissolve and are replaced by a sense of luminosity. Martin uses abstraction as a means to search for deeper truths. Her titles often refer to nature. Nevertheless Martin insists that her works are never landscapes. She chooses her titles because she sees a connection between nature and the artwork, in that both convey beauty. To Martin, beauty is a concept larger than both nature and art.