Agnes Martin exhibition
October 5, 2015
Visiting the Agnes Martin exhibition at Tate Modern after Charlotte Johnson Wahl’s riot of colour was a totally different experience. Martin’s paintings, calm, disciplined and ordered hung in a large white space was meditative and equally inspirational. Her thin layers of paint and use or almost lack of colour gives her work an ethereal, spiritual quality. In spite of this apparent restraint she believed in ‘the emotive and expressive powers of art” ‘Without awareness of beauty, innocence and happiness’ Martin wrote ‘one cannot make works of art’.
Calm (Before the Storm)
£725.00
Acrylic on Canvas 76 x 76 cm
I went for a walk with a friend to find the Badger Stone, one the most impressive of the carved cup-and-ring stones on Ilkley Moor as I had never been there. It was one of those really moody but calm days with a band of grey cloud threatening above but a narrower white streak of sunlight highlighting the other side of the valley. On our quest I looked across at the view with the autumn heather glowing purple nearby and tripped and fell so hard, flat onto the Yorkshire Stone path injuring my hands and knees – my storm! A painful expedition but we persevered and finally found the Badger Stone in the middle of nowhere. This striped grid painting seemed the perfect way to depict this scene and was influenced by Agnes Martin after visiting her exhibition at Tate Modern, London.
