Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin's  Innocent Love 1999 acrylic on canvas series at the Dia Beacon, New York.  There are eight paintings in this series, four on each wall.  All are 60 inches square.

Q:  How do you start a painting?
A:  "I wait for inspiration.
I ask my mind - What am I going to paint next? and it appears in my mind.  My inspirations are in colour. "

She uses mathematics to decide the scale and relation of the colours.  She draws lines with a small ruler because a big ruler pushes the canvas down.

Happiness.  Innocent Love series 1999

Innocence.

"For twenty years I was not satisfied with my paintings and at the end of every year I had a big fire. "

Love:  Innocent Love series 1999

Waiting for inspiration.

"I was thinking of innocence, and a grid came into my mind, and so I painted it.  6 feet by 6 feet and I liked it.  It looked like innocence.  And I asked the museum of Modern Art if they wanted it and they did."

Contentment: Innocent Love series 1999

"Sometimes I take a year off so I'll know something,
because when you're painting, you just get up and do it.
You don't know it."

Innocent Love series seen through opening,  on the facing wall is The Spring, 1958. 48" square

"Artists are very fortunate.  Other working people have to talk to people all day.

You just can't be an artist if you can't be alone.

When you're alone, you are affected by everything. 

The sky, nature..   You respond."

Untitled #16, 2002.  The thin paint allows the roughness of the gesso undercoating to be more evident.

"It's not really about nature.  It's about what is known forever in the mind.

The environment doesn't have impact on my work.  I don't paint nature."

untitled 1959, 30 inches square

"When I draw horizontals  - it's expanding


I like the horizontal line better than any other.  It's not related to landscape.
It goes out.
When you look at the painting you go in over the horizontal line.

It's like music.
Some musicians compose music about music.
Beethoven composed music about experience.
Joy.
Happiness.
It has meaning.
Painters can paint about painting, but my painting is about meaning.
I use that horizontal line to get meaning."

left:  untitled 70", 1960 oil, painted when the artist was 48,  right: untitled #17,2002, acrylic, painted at 90 years

Minimalism

"They were non subjective.
No emotions were in the work.
Minimalists tried to be not there. 
They wouldn't put their names under the paintings.
They said to write their names with a number.
People call me a minimalist, but I'm not.
I'm an abstract expressionist.
I sign my name on the back."

The Beach, 6 foot square pencil on white Gesso painting from 1964 - detail. 

Empty mind

"The intellect struggles with facts.
Keep discovering facts, then make a deduction.
But this is just guess work, inadequate.
You won't find out about life.

I gave up facts in order to have an empty mind.
You have to practice an empty mind.
I gave up being intellectual.
I don't have ideas.

I'm convinced that with a soft attitude you receive more."

......................................................................................................
Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004) quotes from Mary Lance's documentary With My Back To The World. 
Images are of Agnes Martin's 2012 installation at the Dia: Beacon.  
Another excellent interview with Agnes Martin (1997) is here.

Lisa di Quinzio

Left: Wool, Silk and Thread 2010, wool blankets, silk threads, nails, woven, 91 inches diameter
Right: Good Morning Midnight, 2010, burlap, dye, twine, nails, woven, 91 inches diameter

Installed together in the Quiet Zone exhibition, World of Threads festival, November 2012.

They are different from each other.
They are the same as each other.
They are opposite colours.
They are both neutrals..

detail of wool, silk and thread

"My work usually holds some element of gesture"

 detail of good morning midnight

"I think art should demonstrate the immediate on some level."

 Misty Shapes, burlap, dye, thread, glue, 45" diameter

" I am inspired by literature"

Lisa speaks of the clown as an underlying theme for much of her work.  She says that clowns are about our own self consciousness.  They are both foolish and wise,  aggressive and passive.

 Ruff, cotton, dirt, thread, 45" diameter

How does the repeated use of the circle in Lisa di Quinzio's textile work connect to her concerns about immediacy, gesture and the dualities personified in clowns?

 Pussy Willow, pussy willows, thread, pins 25" diameter

Jung  thought of the circle as an archetype of the psyche and  the square as an archetype of the body.

Pussy willow detail

Note that Lisa's circles are not set within squares but are pinned directly to the wall.  The unprotected and solitary large circles exude a kind of  strength.

Dummies, 67" h, cotton, foam and wire by Lisa di Quinzio

aggression and passivity 
wise and foolish
white and black
frayed
smudged
archetypal form
dualities in  life

Spill, jute with metal base, 1985 by Claire Zeisler, (1903 - 1981)

Lisa di Quinzio sites Claire Ziesler (above) as an  influence. More images of  Zeisler's are here.

All quotes and many of the images in this post are from the World of Threads interview with the artist.

John Paul Morabito

tonal warp stripe, 2010, linen, ramie, weaving, burning, 96" x 27"  see artist's website, john paul morabito

 "Of late my work has concerned itself with the actions of hand weaving and systematic burning. The process of weaving cloth by hand and then repeatedly burning it is an act of creation juxtaposed with an act of destruction. This sacrifice of cloth woven by my own hands is not a violent act. It is rather a quiet meditation.   

tonal warp stripe, 2010

 The holes are not burned quickly with ravaging flames. Instead each hole is made individually and slowly to create a contemplation of each moment that has been burnt away."  John Paul Morabito

Plain weave with stripes, 2009, see artist's website

John Paul Morabito turns 30 years in 2012.  He is a MFA candidate (2013)  in fibre and material studies at the school of the art institute of Chicago. 

plain weave with stripes, detail 2009

The patterns of dots on the neutrally coloured hand woven grounds are intriguing. On some pieces they seem like a natural kind of dis-colouring, like mold or insect holes.   On other pieces, they are measured and precisely placed.  But however beautiful they are, these marks are definitely not decoration.  There is a depth in this work that hits you in the heart.   

 

 "Perhaps left over from when we first realized our mortality, we have built into us a yearning for all things impermanent. To be human is not only to create but also to destroy. Called Thanatos, the death drive draws us to the end. I find myself in some ways ruled by Thanatos.

There is a need to make and a need to destroy, neither can be ignored. "     John Paul Morabito

strip construction, 2010  silk, rayon, handwoven, burned 33 x 69.  image from fibrearts magazine spring 2011

 Psychologists tell us that it is all part of the creative process.  It is necessary that we destroy what we have created in order to re-create. This is natural.  Creation and destruction and re-creation.  It is how change happens

But this young man isn't going so far.  He creates in order to destroy and stops there.  He says: " Humanness lies in the failure. The work then becomes a quiescent space of penance and finally acceptance."

It is compelling to think about this.  My body thinks about it. 

burned textile, detail of strip construction, 2010

John Paul Morabito's  work has been part of two most recent fiber art internationals that are held in Pittsburgh every two years.  In one of the final fiberarts magazines (spring 2011) he was featured in the emerging artist showcase.

Warp Faced Plain Weave, 2009, cotton, linen paper, weaving, burning, 55" x 47"  from Fiberart international 2010 catalog

  

 Drawn by the simple beauty of the marks, I respond emotionally to the slow, determined method the artist used to create them, one by one.  It is then that the philosophical ideas inherent in those marks work their way into my head.   It's all about human mortality.  This work is calm acceptance of that undeniable fact.  

After Penelope 2011

In After Penelope, the artist deconstructs an industrially woven textile with the idea of reconstructing it.  This is a switch from his earlier burned pieces.  The destruction happens first, then the idea of re-creation.  Is the artist becoming more positive with his meditations?

No.  John Paul Morabito abandoned this project.  See more images on his website.

"I work in repetition. Finding inspiration in the devotional mindsets of religion and masochism I undertake monumental tasks often impossible to complete. Simple, seemingly useless actions are repeated to the point of absurdity and stopped only when the possibility of going on without end is suggested. The work is concerned with the impossibility of eternity."

Anna Torma's transverbal series

Transverbal 3, 2010, hand embroidery on three layers of silk, silk threads, 143 x 130 cm.

Anna Torma's densely embroidered wall pieces have been inspiring Canadian textile artists since she moved to Canada from Hungary in 1988. The Transverbal series highlighted in this post have recently returned from their showing at the Rijswijk Textile Biennial at the Museum Rijswijk in the Netherlands. Transverbal 4, 2010, hand embroidery on three layers of silk, silk theads, 144 x 132 cm. Detail.

These pieces seem different than the artist's previous embroideries which juxtaposed her own children's wild and wonderful drawings with traditional stitches and tumultuous colours and shapes. Those marvelous and menacing drawings appear in these pieces more like ghosts. Crowded and connected with lines and circles, they seem to be in the process of becoming something other, as if in transformation. Transverbal 2, 2010, hand embroidery on three layers of silk, silk threads, 130 x 132 cm.

Anna Torma's transverbal series uses line. Lines that cross big spaces, outlines of circles that join to each other and linear abstract imagery. It seems as if the artist has made large doodles - (the works all measure about 5 feet square). Dream-like, confident, masterful these pieces are more than ever on the threshold of inner/outer. They are liminal. Perhaps even sublime.

With this work, Anna Torma enters the magic realm of Paul Klee, Cy Twombly, or Jackson Pollock. The specifics of the drawings are not as important as the general feeling of energy we feel from the whole thing. There is a kind of distraction because the eye cannot settle that carries the viewer into their own world of memory and dream. Transverbal 1, 2010, hand embroidery on three layers of silk, silk threads. 142 x 128 cm.

The wonder that impresses the most in these artworks however, is not just that the swirling lines have been so beautifully and intuitively drawn in a transverbal manner, but that they were then stitched. One stitch at a time, in an out with the needle. In and out, like breathing. The artist used her hands and touched these pieces repetitively for hours and hours and hours. This careful and caring touch to commit a line to soft cloth makes these pieces very powerful. It's as if the line that came straight from her inner self was made true and real with slowness and intent. Transverbal 5, 2010, hand embroidery on three layers of silk, silk threads. 142 x 128 cm.

Anna Torma's embroideries are all over the internet. Googling her name will bring up many blogs and galleries that highlight her work. Here and here and here are just three of those. Her own website may be the best place to start.
All of these images are from the Rijswijk Textile Biennial 2011 catalog published by Museum Rijswijk.

Mark Rothko

No. 12, 1951 57" x 52"

Mark Rothko's paintings from the 50's are probably the most obvious artwork to feature in this blog about the modernist aesthetic. Certainly, his work has inspired generations of artists and moved countless art lovers for seventy years. When we think of high modernism, his name is one of the first mentioned.

Around 1940, he took a year long break from painting to continue his intensive self study of philosophy and myth. His paintings at the time were figurative, but his writing of that time shows that he was honing his personal understanding of the colour field work in which he would eventually reign supreme. No. 8, 1952 81" x 68"

He wrote a book which remained in manuscript form for over thirty years. It was never really edited by Rothko himself, but he held onto it through a divorce and second marriage, two children, house moves, and his own phenomenal success, probably thinking that someday he would have enough time to do so. His son, Christopher Rothko, has edited his father's manuscript and writes a lengthy introduction about the difficulties of doing so.
Christopher's respect for his father's legacy is evident. "Rothko had no patience for anything that did not aspire to the highest ideals." Yellow and Blue, 1955, 102" x 67"

In the book, it is amazing to read that Mark Rothko was searching at that time for a way to introduce the tactile sense into his painting. He feels this can be done with the use of light.
And, he wanted to have emotion in his work, identifying the tragic emotions like fear and anger as being the most important, (although artists working today have added a more positive emotion, wonder, to that list). As well, Rothko wanted to mix the subjective with the objective and come to a kind of universality.

These are the ideas of phenomenology, but Rothko never refers to Merleau Ponty, or Gaston Bachelard in his writing. He probably was not aware of them although they were working at the same time. (Merleau Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception was published in 1945, Bachelard's Poetics of Space in 1958.) For me, this makes me understand why Rothko's work has never lost its ability to move viewers to tears. He is able to connect to the immensity within (Bachelard's term) through the body's tactile senses, strong emotion, and a kind of universal intimacy.

It is tough going to find this essence of Rothko in his writing however, because his ideas are often buried in a pile of repetitive complaints. While I am glad that Christopher Rothko did not remove any of his father's words, it would be a service to the art world if someone was able to summarize the great man's book into a simply understood essay. No. 7, 1953 91" x 55"

When Rothko was painting his most famous pieces during the 50's and 60's, he did not say very much, although he was often interviewed. His words from that time have been oft-quoted but they are so mysterious. This book makes those ideas clear.

It's as if Rothko had internalized his ideas so much, he didn't feel it was necessary to spell them out for those of us who were so eager. Orange and Red on Red, 1957 69" x 67"

Rothko quotes or summaries from the book:

"The painter must be likened to the philosopher rather than to the scientist. Philosophers are verbal., they use numerical logic to sort out ethics. But the artist is more concerned with human sensuality." page 22
"Our eyes, our ears, all of our senses, are simply the indications of the existence of a veritable reality that will ultimately resolve itself to our sense of touch." page 25
In the Renaissance, there were three breakthroughs for the visual artist. Linear perspective, oil paints, and chiaroscuro. But sensuality could not be expressed with these. Light was necessary, to produce the quality of emotion. page 35 Untitled, 1955 92" x 69"
While writing this book, Rothko was reading Nietzsche who believed that the entire function of art is to produce a way to endure man's insecurity. He was also reading about primitive art, and came to his own conclusion that it was closer to the emotional.
Rothko felt that the Renaissance and all that came after it, was more about the "outer reality" of perspective, light and shadow, while in Gothic times, Egypt, or Africa, art had been more about our 'inner reality'. Rothko wanted to go back to that timeless period, and terms it the artist's reality. Untitled, 1958 16" x 17"

All of these images are from the 2001 Beyeler gallery monograph of Mark Rothko. The text was inspired by The Artist's Reality: Philosphies of Art by Mark Rothko, edited by Christopher Rothko and published in 2004. There is a lot of information about Mark Rothko on the web. Here and here are good starts. Christopher Rothko talks about the book in this video.

Jane Whiteley

quilt for a sleeping person detail, silk and cotton gauze, hand stitched, dyed with indigo and acid dye 1991

the hands know,
the materials too,
quite apart from your imaginings,
less or more than your intentions -
following the pattern that emerges,
the story as it tells.

Jane Whiteley

Sides to the Middle, Fingers to the Bone, silk and cotton gauze quilt, indigo dyed. 2009 stitched with red thread on the 'worn areas'

Born in England, Jane Whitely has lived in Freemantle, Australia since 1988.

She works with the stuff of bandages. Hand stitched gauze.
She works with the idea of reparation. Of extending life.
She darns. She mends.

Her quilt, Sides to the Middle, Fingers to the Bone references the English domestic practice of turning the sheets in order to prolong their life and was included in the important 2010 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum in London England, Quilts 1700-2010 Hidden Histories, Untold Stories. Large Red Cross, cotton bedsheet, flannelette and gauze. 1998

She works with the ideas behind the cloth. Under the covers, wrapped up with bandages. The intimacy of cloth. The memories of the body.

She is a poet.
In Art Textiles of the World Australia volume 2, her writing is given nearly the same amount of space as images of her work.

I use cloth because it has a powerful human presence and has the capacity to express humanity, human endeavor, emotion. It is as if cloth takes on the imprint of energy, the memory, of the body through years of use and wear.
down cotton gauze, cotton blanket, canvas, hand and machine stitched, eucalyptus dyed, 2006

Her work employs used domestic textiles in a very courageous way. With simplicity.
The human body's mark.
What would usually be thrown away, is made into art by Jane Whitely. Her work asks us to think about what is really important.

Her work is almost sculptural. It suggests the body's absence. It recalls the body's presence.
Her textiles breathe.
Like passing footsteps.

a story unfolding
Leave no shadow, no stone unturned hand pieced silk, acid dye, cotton threads 2006

Most of these images are from Art Textiles of the World Australia, Volume two. The Powerhouse museum in Sydney, Australia mounted a solo exhibition of her work in 1999, but there are no images available on their website. The catalog for that exhibit, From Within is unavailable to purchase.

I hope that this blog post brings more attention to this artist's work.

Polly Binns

Intimacy and space blend in the immensity of the landscape. The whole is imbued with the memories of my body within the landscape; my step, pace and sight-line. Serial Shimmers and Shades, 1996 Acrylic paint and thread on linen canvas 185 x 125 cm, collection of Nottingham Castle museum

Polly Binns, a member of England's prestigious 62 group, is considered a 'maverick' in the embroidery community. She grew up in a house of artists; her father used grids to size up his modernist design work and her mother painted the surrounding landscape. Untitled 1982 black cotton with coloured thread, smocking technique. 50 x 45 x 5 cm

She started her art career in clay, but soon studied weaving as a way to understand the material essence of cloth. When she eventually began exploring artist's canvas she was influenced by minimalists like Donald Judd and Carl Andre who worked with ordinary materials for their own sake. How did canvas behave when it wasn't stretched, when it wasn't covered with oil paint? She folded, pleated, stitched the cloth to raise the surface. She worked the cloth from both sides. Sand Surface and
Shadows, Winter 1996 1996 artist canvas, acrylic paint, threads, surface treatments. 7 panels 280 x 210 cm

The vertical elongated rectangles in the above piece relate directly to the body and seem to represent humans within the landscape. Polly Binns says about this piece that it is "a memory of the surface from where my feet stood to the far horizon. "
Her work from the mid 90's can be termed "post minimalist", as along with the grid geometry and attention to materials, there is also a kind of poetry.
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard is an influence. He wrote about "two kinds of space, intimacy and world space. When human solitude deepens, these two immensities touch and become identical. "
Although her work has become more poetic, it is never autobiographical. Her work is about observation and about memory of place. Before Polly Binns does any work in her studio, she walks. She repeats the same walk each time, at low tide, in the Blakeney Channel on the north Norfolk coast of England. No walk - no work.

This is a phenomenological approach. Walking immerses her in a direct experience. Mud, sand, water, bird marks, light are observed and felt with all her senses. There is a tension between order and intuition, between rational knowledge and the not quite known. Inshore Curve 1996 185 x 125 cm

Polly Binns had a daughter in 1986. During the first five years of Katy's life, the artist mounted a solo exhibition, joined the craft council and started full time teaching. However, about those years between 1986 and 1991, the artist says that she "closed down" and that her "balance had gone".

She took time off from making art and looked at more art by others, including that of Agnes Martin. Even more important, she took her little girl on long walks in the landscape, and together they observed things closely. All of a sudden, she realized that the land had seeped into her material knowledge and she knew what to do next in her career. Study 1 1996 27 x 28 cm collection Pamela Johnson

"My intention is to pare down the image: to reduce the pictorial elements of my memory landscape:
to focus on my interior vision
to recall and reference the glimpse, the half caught image,
the layered textures of memory." Polly Binns

In 1998, she received a PhD from England's University of Teesside for her new body of work entitled Vision and Process in Textile Art: a Personal Response to a Particular Landscape.
In 2001 she represented Britain at the 10th International Triennial in Lodz Poland.

The images in this post are from Surfacing, a monograph of Polly Binns that accompanied her 2003 exhibition at Bury St Edmunds art gallery. The information is gleaned from Pamela Johnson's excellent essay and the timeline of Polly Binn's career and life that is included in that book. The quotations are from Polly Binns's artist statement from the catalogue for Texture and Memory, an exhibition curated by Pamela Johnson and Peninna Barnett in 1999.