Agnes Martin
After researching the work and process of Agnes Martin, what I take away most from the experience is the way her work evolved. I can see how she learned from artists and movements around her, but not necessarily trying to do the same thing, for the same reasons. While others abstracted and simplified seemingly as a way of reducing things conceptually, the overwhelming impact I get from her work is a search for clarity.
Not necessarily to get clear on some idea or form, but to express the clarity of emotion she experienced. After training, she produced a number of "anti-nature" paintings. I don't think these are against nature itself, more against the organic romanticism of other ways of capturing landscapes. Her early experiments with autonomic painting are interesting, but there is something a little forced and conceited about the work to me.
Her work exploring organic forms abstractly shows her investment into her process over the result. It's like she's searching for the best way to convey the essence of what she is feeling. I get a sense that this is where she starts to invest in the act of making and workmanship, favouring repetition and evolution over innovation.
As the work developed it became more subtle, reflected in her predominantly muted palettes. There is an intention to the work. It increasingly becomes more rhythmic.
That rhythm then extends to what she is probably most famous for, her grids. Her work has become precise, but not precious. She is not looking for perfection, she is meditating, exalting the discipline of the process and combining it with shape and colour to manipulate the viewing into feeling the emotion she is trying to convey with her work.
There is an absence of anxiety in the way she constructs her grids. They come from a place of being complete in her mind's eye. All choices and deliberations have been made, and this is where the process takes over. It is a vector for emotion. All the little imperfections and construction marks from paint or graphite are all part of the process. They are embraced not hidden.
Her work was not to somehow remove the barrier between her subconscious and the media, which seems to be to be the focus of many automatists. Instead, it seems like her work - being fully formed in her mind - was about allowing everyone to share emotions, to create a common truth through her work.
Interestingly, was the way that (for her) thinking was a deep part of her process. The inspiration was a starting point, but she needed to be sure about how something was going to be executed before she set to work. This is actually quite comforting to me. I worry that I overthink things. That I spend too much of my time creating images in my head, and not enough time actually doing something in my sketchbook. After researching Martin's work and process I think that maybe it's not so bad. What I need to watch out for is overthinking things based on external bias and pressure - to intellectualize the work in order to avoid criticism.
Her work reinforces my growing understanding that there is a balance between thinking and doing, as long as both are done in a fully embodied way.
Eva Hesse
In contrast to Martin, Eva Hesse's work seems predominantly focused on her relationship with herself as a person, bringing her internal world out of her body. With artistic foundations congruent with the Bauhaus movement, Hesse explored human nature through physical artistic expression.
It feels like her work was designed to challenge. I don't get the impression that this was as a way of statement or defiance, but actually, a calm mischievousness that attempted to establish a genderless meritocracy around art.
It feels like she was trying to connect to others through her art. She seemed to embrace the random and absurd as a way of removing barriers and engaging the viewer to relate with a common human experience.
"It is a curious characteristic of many of Hesse’s works that once you have been touched by them you are caught between emotions. That they can be simultaneously experienced as humorous, impressive, whimsical, pathetic, calm, frantic, grand, or sad is a measure in some contradictory manner of the seriousness that lies at the core of her art."
- Lucy Lippard on the work of Eva Hesse
I can relate somewhat to aspects of the artist's personality. She seems at the same time both fearless and anxious, constantly searching. I also get the sense that her work is a way of externalising those emotions and internal questions. In that way, I get the sense that the artist achieved a sense of restless peace.
There is an intersection in her early work with Martin, with both exploring biomorphism. I think the biggest difference in her work from other minimalists or abstract expressionists is that the physical experience of making the art is an essential quality. She didn't want her work to be hidden, she wanted you to see it.
She embraced the physicality of her work, her process and the media she used. She did not create for longevity and was fully aware of the properties of the media she used. I think this is actually an amazing legacy, given that she tragically died so young. She was aware everything died, everything is broken down and entropy was inescapable. So whole her artwork outlived her, I think there is a symbolism in the way it will also decay.
She seems almost opposite to Martin in the way that her work is not fully formed in her head. She 'writes on stage' as stand-up comics would say. She learns about the work by doing, either through written notes and plans or by spontaneously experimenting. I am not sure I can relate to the latter half of this process. It's very rare that I spontaneously play with media. I think for Hesse, this approach was essential, however. To her, it conveyed honesty and candour about her truth and the materials themselves.
One aspect I can relate to her is self-doubt and fear. The way she ultimately expressed herself was incredibly brave given her doubts. I particularly enjoyed this piece of advice given to her by Sol LeWitt:
“Learn to say ‘Fuck You’ to the world once in a while. You have every right to,” he wrote. “Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting…besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO.”
Her experiences and experimentations with materials evolved over time. After starting with materials like papier-mâché she moved into using more 'professional' or 'grown-up' materials like latex. I can't work out if this came from a need to explore different materials or as a result of keeping up with the expectations of the art world as her fame and influence grew.
She used fairly mainstream materials and media on the whole, but her nack for embracing the absurd allowed her to mimic the mainstream and then subvert it. Her study and use of latex allowed her to use the flesh-like quality of the material to create naturalistic pieces that tie the viewer to the human condition. She chose largely organic forms, meaning her work mirrors her early biomorphic pieces, but in three-dimensional space.
What I admire most about Hesse's work is her commitment to her own truth and expression. Even when faced with fear (and ultimately an untimely death) she didn't retreat. She used the emotions and turned them into something physical. Something people could talk about and interpret. In doing so, perhaps, they could discover aspects of their own internal world.
Bibliography
Artnews.com. 2015. ‘What We Make, Is What We Feel’: Agnes Martin on Her Meditative Practice, in 1976 – ARTnews.com. [online] Available at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/what-we-make-is-what-we-feel-agnes-martin-on-her-meditative-practice-in-1976-4630/ [Accessed 13 February 2022].
Bartoletti, A., Ormsby, B. and Maor, T., 2020. Insights into Eva Hesse’s Working Practice: A Technical Study of Addendum 1967 – Tate Papers | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/33/eva-hesse-working-practice-technical-study-addendum [Accessed 13 February 2022].
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Laing, O., 2015. Agnes Martin: the artist mystic who disappeared into the desert. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/22/agnes-martin-the-artist-mystic-who-disappeared-into-the-desert [Accessed 13 February 2022].
Museum of Modern Art, 2017. How to paint like Agnes Martin – with Corey D'Augustine. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Fyzav8MxE [Accessed 13 February 2022].
Princenthal, N., 2019. Art 'Requires a Relaxation of Control': How Agnes Martin Gave Up Intellectualism to Harness Her Inspiration. [online] Artnet News. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/agnes-martin-nancy-princenthal-1425421 [Accessed 13 February 2022].
Régimbal, C., n.d. AGNES MARTIN LIFE & WORK - Style & Technique. [online] Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Available at: https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/agnes-martin/style-and-technique/ [Accessed 13 February 2022].
Rush, M., 2019. Eva Hesse and the Physical Touch. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@madisonelizabethrush/eva-hesse-and-the-physical-touch-9b45526867d2 [Accessed 13 February 2022].
The Art Story. n.d. Eva Hesse Sculptures, Bio, Ideas. [online] Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hesse-eva/ [Accessed 13 February 2022].
The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. n.d. Agnes Martin - Materials and Process. [online] Available at: https://www.guggenheim.org/teaching-materials/agnes-martin/materials-and-process [Accessed 13 February 2022].
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