For this learning portfolio post I decided to compare and contrast the works of Ellsworth Kelly and Agnus Martin. Agnus Martins is a Canadian born artists who’s work really stood out to me, although very subtle I found it very emotional. After the death of one of her good friends she decided to move away from city life and to Galisteo, New Mexico. Here she better developed and refined her technique. Agnes’ abstract and geometrical paintings could easily be looked past. After reading further into her work I got a better understanding of her choice to work with geometrical and abstract shapes.
Her choice to use desert like colors in this exhibition creates a sense of stillness to it, I felt like I could look at each piece for hours and just bask in the calming effects it had on me. I found this quite interesting due to the fact that Agnes had suffered from symptoms of schizophrenia and was often hospitalized. She foucsed her works on very subtle colors and geometric shapes, maybe she did so to calm down everything going on in her head.
The other artists I choose to focus on was Ellsworth Kelly. I felt that Ellsworth and Agnes’ work had a very similar effect although Kelly used brighter and more impactful colors in comparison to Martins sublet choice of colors. The piece that specifically stood out to me in the exhibit was Ellsworths “Red-Orange Panel with Curve” I intuitionally thought that the light projected on the piece was what created the light spot in the middle of the painting but as I assed it a little more I realized it was actually just the painting its self.
What I liked about both these artists is that they both used color and geometric shapes to convey emotion to the viewer – they both are also fairly simple paintings that would once again be looked passed rather for me they meant more than just simple dull lines or just a red spot on the wall. They contrast in the colors they chose also, Agnes chooses to paint with subtle dessert like colors where Ellsworth uses brighter colors to get his point across.
