Agnes Martin: Grid & Ground

Soft pencil grids on near-white canvas. Stand back six feet — the lines dissolve into atmosphere. Step close — you see her hand shake. That tension is the whole show.

Agnes Martin spent decades in the New Mexico desert, refining a practice that sat somewhere between painting and meditation. Her grids aren't geometric exercises — they're attempts to paint feelings like happiness, innocence, and beauty using nothing but horizontal lines and washes of pale colour. This retrospective at Tate Modern traces that arc from early biomorphic work through the iconic 6×6-foot canvases of the 1960s and into the luminous late paintings. The hang is chronological and unhurried, giving each canvas the breathing room it demands. Martin insisted her work had nothing to do with minimalism; she called herself an abstract expressionist. Seeing forty canvases together makes her case convincingly.

• BOOK Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art
• WIKIPEDIA Agnes Martin — Wikipedia
• PODCAST The Lonely Palette: Agnes Martin