Agnes Martin:  Exhibition in Tate Modern

I visited Tate Modern to see the Agnes Martin exhibition on 4th October 2015

The artist Anne Wilson has described  Martin's work as follows:  "The colour in Agnes Martin's work can be like the colour of rock at dawn, at midday and at sunset, depending on where your perceptions are when you see it."

This is a major exhibition of Martin's work and has to be seen to be experienced. Some of the paintings are in oil and some in acrylic but they all seem to have the ability to evoke a meditative response. I particularly liked some of the larger 6ft x 6ft paintings especially "White Stone" and "Grey Stone"which are made up of graph-like squares. A lot of the work is in soft pastel colours, mostly white and  light shades of blue and red and I think this contributes to the feeling  of quiet serenity in the paintings.

The exhibition examines the two distinct periods that define her career, her early work up to 1967 using biomorphic form  and her later work which began in the 1970s, when she adopted a template of vertical or horizontal stripes and this remained her style for the next three decades.   Her work has been described by the critic Marion Ackermann as "modest in form and subtle in colour though with an immense presence and powerful energy that almost takes physical hold of the viewer."

I came away from seeing this exhibition feeling that with Martin's "quiet and serene" work I had experienced something different from the strong gestures and bold colours of many abstract works of art that I had seen in the past.