I want to prove to people that they make responses way beyond their conscious lives.
— Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin paints frequencies

In 2002, I spent the day with Agnes Martin, who was 90 years old at the time. We washed down chocolate cake with red wine (a less-than-minimalist treat), visited her home, and sat amongst her work at the Harwood Museum. Seven paintings, all graduations of light blue and white, form a sort of meditational semi-circle in an octagon shaped room. It was in sitting quietly with her that I stopped looking at her work intellectually, and her paintings were somehow transformed. The stripes became less like lines on canvas and more like gentle sound waves or frequencies. There was a bliss and lightness that I didn't expect, as if underneath each disciplined line was its opposite–the dissolving of discipline, so that only feeling remained. A feeling not unlike love itself.

Martin's work shown in gallery image above: Innocent love, Ordinary love, An infant's response to love.



Agnes Martin, She loves love

An archival reproduction of original article published in Zoozoom magazine in 2002. Filmed sequence of original content.