Agnes Martin Quotes

On a Clear Day: Art work that is completely abstract - free from any expression of the environment is like music and can be responded to in the same way. Our response to line and tone and color is the same as our response to sounds.. .It holds meaning for us that is beyond expression in words.
These prints [title, 'On a Clear Day'] express innocence of mind. If you can go with them and hold your mind as empty and tranquil as they are and recognize your feelings at the same time you will realize your full response to this work.

When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.

When I draw horizontals
you see this big plane and you have certain feelings like
you're expanding over the plane
Anything can be painted without representation

People think that painting is about color
It's mostly composition
It's composition that's the whole thing
The classic image-
Two late Tang dishes, one with a flower image,
one empty – the empty form goes all the way to heaven
It is the classic form – lighter weight.

When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square. Destroys its power.

Beauty is very much broader than just to the eye. It is our whole, positive response to life. An artist is fortunate in that his work is the inner contemplation of beauty, of perfection in life. We cannot make anything perfectly, but with inner contemplation of perfection, we can suggest it.

The little rectangle contradicts the square. And the square is authoritative.. .The rectangle is pleasant, whereas the square is not.. ..It's too stiff, too authoritative. My paintings are made up of little rectangles, not little squares There was a scholar who dug up a Tantric drawing that was just like my grid, and it was made of rectangles, too, just exactly like mine.. .I was surprised. I didn't think anybody had made a grid quite like that.

You sort of underestimate the human being when you say that every least thing that is an abstract experience is spiritual. It isn't. It's just your real self. You can be capable of fantastic abstract experiences, right in this life.

..the function of art work is.. ..the renewal of memories of moments of perfection.

I used to pay attention to the clouds in the sky.. .I paid close attention for a month to see if they ever repeated. They don't repeat. And I don't think life does either. It's continually various. That's the truth about life.

My [artworks] have neither object nor space nor line nor anything – no forms. They are light, lightness, about merging, about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean. You can go in if you don’t encounter anything. A world without objects, without interruption, making a work without interruption or obstacle. It is to accept the necessity of this simple, direct going into a field of vision as you could cross and empty beach to look at the ocean.

To be an artist, you look, you perceive, you recognize what is going through your mind. And it is not ideas. Everything you feel and everything you see and everything that your whole life goes through your mind, you know. But you have to recognize it and go with it and really feel it.

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings. That's the end [of the interview].