"It was so flat, you know, you could see the curves of the earth. And when a train came into vision at nine oclock in the morning, it was still leaving at noon.. ..it took that long to get across the prairie."
Agnes Bernice Martin was a Canadian-American abstract painter known for her minimalist style and abstract expressionism. Born in Saskatchewan, she moved to the United States in 1931, where she pursued higher education and became a U.S. citizen in 1950. Martin's artistic journey began in New York City, where she immersed herself in modern art and developed a deep interest in abstraction. Despite of
"The adventurous state of / mind is a high house // To enjoy life the adventurous / state of mind must be / grasped and maintained // The essential feature of adventure is that it is a / going forward into / unknown territory // The joy of adventure is unaccountable // This is the attractiveness of / art work. It is adventurous, / strenuous and joyful."
"I am staying unsettled and trying not to talk for three years. I want to do it very much."
"When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square. Destroys its power."
"My work is anti-nature The four-story mountain You will not think form, space, line, contour Just a suggestion of nature gives weight light and heavy light like a feather you get light enough and you levitate"
"Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it. I want to draw a certain response like this.. ..that quality of response from people when they leave themselves behind, often experienced in nature, an experience of simple joy.. .My paintings are about merging, about formlessness.. .A world without objects, without interruption."
"I am grateful for the [financial] assistance I received last year [1955] through the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. It gave me the materials I needed and a certain amount of security and enabled me to make a very good try for my New York show. This did not succeed but Miss Betty Parsons whose gallery I will eventually show in assured me that in one more year she thought I could make it, which is not discouraging.. .I painted all together one hundred canvasses of which I had a good opinion and sold seven [in a year]."