Time and perceptibility in Agnes Martin’s mature paintings

Abstract

Agnes Martin, one of the most singular figures of the second half of the 20th Century American art scene, created a cohesive body of work based on pale-colored, iterative, geometrical yet lyrical abstraction. Her oeuvre, poetic and subtle to the point of being not easily photographable, has only recently gained international acclaim. Tensioned by the relationships between drawing and painting, the natural and the abstracted, spirituality and rationalism, subjectivity and objectivity… her work awes both critics and the vernacular public. This text dissects Martin’s mature paintings in relation to the notions of time and perception. In order to do so, Martin’s own notes and writings, as well as interviews transcriptions and memories by close gallerists and critics are analyzed here. Ultimately, this article poses the perceptive and temporal experiences as decisive factors in Martin’s pictorial proposals, which demand the attentive, slow gaze to be fully grasped.

Keywords

• Agnes Martin
• Time
• Perceptibility
• Painting
• Lyrical abstraction
• 20th Century