S U B T L E S H A D E S D R A W A N O P E N I N G PAT H :THE POETIC WORK OF AGNES MARTIN’S ART
B Y U TA K O S H I N D O[Script: To be read as Public lecture at St. Francis Auditorium, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, on February 5, 2020.]

Utako Shindo Ph.D. is a Tokyo Artist, whose studio and research pursuits are the untranslatability of art and nuanced shadow-light as poetic medium. Her
year-long project based in New Mexico traced Martin’s artistic path — scholarly and experientially. She is seeking a deeper understanding of how Martin’s
abstractions embody ineffable life and express universal emotions. In turn, Shindo’s own art now reflects her understanding of Martin’s path. She was a
Japanese government creative fellow and a resident at Forde Visser Archive Southwest, Santa Fe in 2019.

Study work on paper in studio (detail), Utako Shindo, 20191) The Untranslatable
As an artist and an audience member, I notice something in an artwork that resists translation into
everyday (prosaic) language. I experience it as a shift, oscillation, drift or movement between thesensible (sensation) and the intelligible (cognition). It is like nuanced shadow-light or light-shadowthat draws our attention without giving us a clue of who it is/where it is from. My attention is held by
this ‘in-between’ spatiality. Then, for a brief moment, it touches me lovingly and truthfully.
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I call it ‘the untranslatable’, as I am inspired by the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida’s discussion
on the Greek concept of khora and the Japanese concept of ma（間）. Khora and ma commonly
indicate negative (in-between) spatiality, such as the void, blank, interval, gap and so forth, which
Derrida recognises to be both untranslatable and a place for translation, transference and movement
in both a semantic and material sense1.
To be touched by the untranslatable, lovingly and truthfully, has a significant impact on me, as it
transforms how I experience and reflect on the world. And it can possibly metamorphose who I am.
It is the ineffable life that transfers from one body to another. It is the source of our life: the life force.
It is the transcendental in the Western metaphysics, and the external in the Eastern thoughts. It is
expressed as ‘motion’, coming externally from outside our realm of the intelligible or the sensible. Itis, hence, highly abstract, yet, this ‘e-motion’ can be remembered universally as we perceive beauty.
In other words, it is that which makes us ‘respond to an artwork’2 as Agnes Martin would say.
In her writing, ‘The Still and Silent in Art’, she expresses:
My interest is in experience that is wordless and silent, and in the fact that this experience canbe expressed for me in art work which is also wordless and silent. It is really wonderful tocontemplate the experience and the works. I am sure there will always be some who make this
response who will want to try to express it graphically. But with regard to the inner life of eachof us it may be of great significance. If we can perceive ourselves in the work- not the work but
ourselves when viewing the work then the work is important. If we can know our response, seein ourselves what we have received from a work, that is the way to the understanding of truth
and all beauty3.
‘Beauty’, according to Agnes, “illustrates happiness”4. Among all sorts of happinesses, I understandthis ‘happiness’ as that of being touched by love, which brings us to this world and keeps us alive.
‘Beauty is the Mystery of Life’, was the title of the talk that Agnes gave to ‘her New Mexican neighbor’at this St. Francis auditorium in 1989. It began with her saying:
When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the Mystery of Life. It’s not in the eye but it is in
the mind. In our mind there is an awareness of perfection. We respond to beauty withemotions. Beauty speaks a message to us…5

1 “Discussion A-1”, Anyone, ed. Cynthia C. Davidson,, (New York: Rizzoli International Publishing 1991), 90.
2 Agnes Martin, “We perceive. We see…,” Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances, ed. Arne Glimcher, London: Phaidon, 2012, 144.
3 Writings/Agnes Martin = Schriften/Agnes Martin, ed. Dieter Schwarz, Winterthur : Kunstmuseum Winterthur/Edition Cantz, 1992, 89.
4 Agnes Martin, ”Beauty is the Mystery of Life,” Agnes Martin, eds. Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell, London: Tate publishing, 2015, 159.
5 Agnes Martin, Beauty is the Mystery of Life, Public lecture on April 14, 1989, (Santa Fe: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989), Cassette.

2This awareness of perfection, or ‘ideal’ in the Greek philosophical sense: the transcendental,
resonates with my perception of the untranslatable (or ineffable) that touches me lovingly andtruthfully. And that could be, then the message of Beauty: truth and love.

2_1) Beauty_ LightI, then, ask, how can her artwork embody this untranslatable: the ineffable life? (That which weremember through ‘beauty’ as an expression of happiness of our being loved in this world.) In
asking so, my long term pursuit of the untranslatable has been furthered by this my one-year
fellowship project in New Mexico.
Khora is the Platonic, and Ma（間）is the Zen concept for space and time: Khora is where-when orderis made of chaos, ma is where-when form/image/soundis born out of void. In this ‘untranslatable’ space-time,the very transference takes place (occurs), from ‘thenegative’ to ‘the positive’.
As well known, Agnes Martin was highly informed bythese two streams of thought: the ‘classics’ of the Westand the East. And it is evident in her works: in thenegative space/time the positive is immanent, and the
movement draws form/image/sound fromformlessness/nothingness/silence. They arereminiscent of Khora or Ma space-time.
Artistically, these qualities lie in the subtlety of shadeand light as in Noh-tan（濃淡）, and in the line where
motion of three dimensional space is concentrated/frozen [Figure 1]. (Each is a classic technique or
aesthetic system of the Eastern and the Western art).
And together they can be experienced as ‘waves’ (orhuman wavering) that embrace the (negative) space/time between their own waves [Figure 2]. As though inthe breaks of imperfect nature (wave can be that ofocean, river, light, heat, wind or sound) the perfection is
exposed in an instant.
The work, The Tree, is understood as the very first workof hers that presents her established ‘grid’ language
3

Fig. 1-2. Agnes Martin, Untitled #5, 1977, ink, graphite and gesso
on canvas, 72x72inch, SFMOMA, San Francisco, Photo by theauthor, 2019

[Figure 3-4]. According to her fellow artist Richard Tuttle,
Agnes invented this as a new ‘language’, since it, for thefist time in the history of art, expresses ‘LIGHT’ throughthe grid.
His articulation enabled me to see this image of the grid,
resonating with the image of the ‘sieve’, used by the
Greek Demiourgos (Demiurge), the architect and creator,
who gives order to the chaos of khora. And does so with
the image of Ma（間）, written hieroglyphically in Chinesecharacter: 間, the sunlight coming through the gate which is built with both vertical and horizontal
lines.
In relation to the image of the ‘sieve’ used to gives oder tothe chaos, fascinatingly, the Art Historian, Suzanne
Hudson recognizes ‘square’ that Martin employs as “aclassical device of ideal proportion”6. Furthermore, shepoints out that it is generational to employ such a device,as that had been discussed by the writer Lucy Lippard on
Jo Baer and Robert:…The square cannot be exaggerated; it remains
stationary, enduring, unalterable, and provides auniversal standard that is as attractive in its precisionand neutrality to the space age as it was to early
philosophers and theologians. The square and the
cube still offers the perfect vehicle by which toimpose order on chaos, the ideal form to express
both multiplicity and unity.7

Fig. 3-4. Agnes Martin, The Tree, 1964, oil and pencil oncanvas, 60 x 60inch, MOMA, New York, Photo by the author,
2019

And the image of the external (sunlight) coming into the empty space framed, resonates with
Martin’s description, “...I wait for the inspiration. The painting comes into my mind… You have to wait
if you’re going to be inspired. You have to clear out your mind, to have a quiet and empty mind”8.
Hudson recognizes such Martin’s saying again as generational, as evident in her reference to“(O)thers in her circle in NY” who “lent heavily on intuition, including her close friend Lenore Tawny”.
While Tawny was knowledgeable in world religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, Hudson observes
6 Suzanne Hudson, Agnes Martin: Night Sea, London: Afterall Books, 2017, 44.
7 Quoted in Hudson, Agnes Martin: Night Sea (Lucy ippard, ‘Homage to the Square’, Art in America,

vol.55, no,4 July-August 1967, 50.)

8 Quoted in Holland Cotter, ‘Agnes Martin’, Art Journal, vol.57, no.3, 1998, 77. Collage of Art Association

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that “Martin posed an understanding of herself as transitive; she was a sort of conduit, receiving
directions for creation from afar”9.
It is the negative space-time between the lines that structures the ineffable (chaos) or enables theexternal (light) to come through and into it. Why do I find it beautiful, her work, expressing the lightin this manner? To me, the beauty of her ‘Light’ is felt because of the lingering darkness into/fromwhich it travels.

2_2) Beauty_ Darkness
Art historically, the work, Night Sea, is considered‘her last processed work' or the last work before thegrid, since her struggles are still visible [Figure 5],
according to Suzanne Hudson, who dedicated abook on this work, ’Night Sea’. She observes that thework is “far from her aspirational logic of her
professed ‘classicism’ - a perfection that is, of course,
unattainable”10.
Fig. 5. Agnes Martin, Night Sea (detail), 1963, oil, crayon and gold leaf

Metaphorically the work speaks of the Night Sea on linen, 72 x 72inch, SFMOMA, San Francisco, Photo by the author,
Journey, “the dark night of the soul”11 [Figure 6]. 2019
Hudson counts ‘dark’ as one of the ‘abstract
emotions’ Martin offers, which Martin elaborates on in her writing:As in the night. To penetrate the night is one thing. But to be penetrated by the night. That is tobe overtaken. Defeated, exhausted, and helpless you will perhaps go a little bit further…
Moments of helplessness are moments of blindness…The panic of complete helplessness
drives us to fantastic extremes.12
This was written for artists and students on an approach to the challenges in studio work, which
includes “pitfalls in our paths”; “tremendous delays and wandering off tracks”. She considered them
not as false but “next” steps. In her view, a way/path of artists’ expressing her/himself is “inevitable”13,
and furthermore it can guide her/him ‘to fantastic extremes’.

9 Hudson, Agnes Martin: Night Sea, 44.
10 Ibid., 17.
11 Ibid., 77.
12 Agnes Martin, "On the Perfection Underlying Life", Writings / Schriften, ed. Dieter Schwarz, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje-Cantz Verlag, 1992
13 Ibid.

5Here, Martin intuits the inevitability of Darkness,whether it is the actual experience or themetaphorical condition. Speaking of ’Darkness’, I
understand it not as oppositional to ‘Light’, nor
secondary to it, unlike the Platonic conception of
shadow, still dominant today, which positions
shadow (as well as art and poetry) against light,
truth and knowledge. My understanding isunderpinned by other voices that maintain
Darkness as the foundation of all phenomena that
includes the light we perceive.
The contemporary Italian philosopher, Roberto
Casati, in seeking a concept of shadow that differsfrom the Platonic shadow, expresses, “I have learnt
Fig. 6. Agnes Martin, Night Sea, 1963, oil, crayon and gold leaf on linen, 72
light can become shadow and shadow light”14.
x 72inch, SFMOMA, San Francisco, Photo by the author, 2019
This ‘shadow light’ is both a visual and spatialconcept, underpinned by his recognition of
shadows as “(dark) areas” where “space comes into it subtly”15.
Similarly, (the Japanese architect) Arata Isozaki claims that “space is essentially darkness” and“[A]bsolute blackness is the background essential to the manifestation of all phenomena”16. In thereflection of Junichiro Tanizaki’s classic essay, In praise of shadows, young Isozaki observes ‘light
flashes’ in what Tanizaki designates as ‘darkness’ in the Japanese traditional architecture. It might bethese flashes that Agnes experienced as ‘fantastic extremes’, leaving us with ‘shadows’, not as the
projected but “everything left over when light cuts through darkness”17.
The artist Richard Tuttle defines a shadow as “between dark and light; we speak of a shade of acolor”. His definition is intended to break the canon of drawing shadow, which is trapped in being(reduced to) “only a question of light and dark” as demonstrated in cross-hatching18.

2-3) Beauty_ Shadow-light / Noh-Tan / Shade-Light

14 Roberto Casati, “Shadow Tales of Knowledge and Power”, Shadow Play, ed. Kunsthallen Brands Klaedefabrik (Denmark: Kunsthallen Brands Klaedefabrik,2005), 47.
15 Roberto Casali, Shadows (the original Italian edition is entitled, The Shadow Clubs), N.Y.: Vintage Books, 2004, 205
16 Isozaki, “Yami no Kukan [Space of Darkness: spiritual structure of illusion],” 153.
17 Ibid.
18 Richard Tuttle, “Manifesto”, Drawing Papers 49, NY: The Drawing Center, 2004

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The series of my drawing, entitled,
Daybreak, attempts to capture
how the first light in the morning
coming through the trees, leaves
the shadows that shine and shiftacross the architectural surfaces of
my studio/residence in Santa Fe.
‘A shade of color’ is ’black’,confined by shading strokes ofpigmented charcoal [Figure 7 -8].
These works also presented itself
t o m y e y e s a s a b s t ra c t i o n ,expressing something greaterthan its obvious reference: nature.

Fig. 7-8. Utako Shindo, Daybreak#2-3, 2020,
pigmented charcoal on paper, 44 x 30inch

In fact, I have come to learn that Mondrian’s early abstract
compositions [Figure 9] were explored through his close
studies of trees as well as seascapes, and also that Agnes
was most likely aware of his studies. The art historian,Richard Tobbin, points out, Agnes was most likely
informed by her close friendship with her NY Counties
Slip neighbor Elsworth Kelly whose “path to pure
abstraction”19 was highly influenced by Mondrian’s early
grid paintings. In referring to Robert Hughes, Tobbin
e l a b o r a t e s o n M o n d r i a n ’s b o t h s p i r i t u a l a n d‘Theosophical’ motivation to “reveal spiritual continuity
throughout nature”, and on his achievement to unite “solid Fig. 9. Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, 1913, oil on canvas,
88 x 115cm
and void, positive and negative and horizontal andvertical”20, which was distilled from many hours of walking and gazing on the coast.
His discussion suggests the commonality between Mondrian and Agnes: not only their abstract
compositions but in their walking. The walking (as well as driving) were Agnes’ ways to ‘rest’ from
actual making, but also to deepen her thinking about painting. It is most evident in her film Gabriel,which captures the perspectives of a boy, who walks and gazes at the ocean and the mountain. It
repeatedly shows ‘linear motifs’ such as the branches of the trees, the contours of the mountains andthe horizontal lines, and ‘shifting lights and shadows’ such as the dappled sunlight, the sunny and theshady hillsides and glittering water, appearing around these linear motifs.

19 Richard Tobin, "Agnes Martin: Before the Grid," Agnes Martin: Before the Grid, Taos: The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico, 2012, 17.
20 Quoted in Tobin, “Agnes Martin:Before the Grid” (Robert Hugues, The Shock of the New, New York, 1981, 203)7

Figure 10-12. Photo by the author, 2019

Outside of my studio, I have also spent many hours of walking along Santa Fe River trail [Figure 10],driving through the endless roads of the Southwest [Figure 11] and the desert West, and wanderingon the beach in California where Agnes shot her footage for Gabriel [Figure 12].
What was I was gazing on then? Perhaps the Abstract space felt notwith but through Nature.
In her discussion of Agnes Pelton–-who precedes Martin in a broad
sense as an artist working on abstraction in the desert regions(differently through underscored by Theosophical belief) [Figure 13],
the art historian Sharyn Udall articulates, “The unfenced expanses ofthe West invited contemplation of a nearly infinite space in which themind and eyes wander endlessly”21. By seeing the land whose shape/
form is defined by the sky (usually it is opposite in Tokyo where theland shapes the sky), I was allowed to be immersed in equilibrium, or
what the heart sutra teaches us, “Form is emptiness, emptiness isform”22.
This space of the near infinite is fertile. To me, it is filled withnuanced shadows, in other words, subtle Shades and Light: Nohtan（濃淡）. Therefore it makes sense that this Japanese principal

Fig. 13. Agnes Pelton, Departure (detail),
1952, oil on canvas, photo taken by theauthor during the Agnes Pelton
exhibition at New Mexico Museum of Art,
November, 2019of Nohtan, which is the base of Arthur Dow’s teaching of
abstraction, shaped the foundation of Pelton's as well as O’Keeffe’sartistic languages [Figure 14].
And I speculate that Martin (in thinking her passionate letters to
O’Keeffe23) was aware of the effectiveness of Noh-tan in her
predecessors’ works produced in this particular part of the US

Fig.14. O’Keeffe’s sketchbooks on display,dating from 1901-1918, photo by the author,
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, March 201921 Sharyn R. Udall, "Releasing the Imagination's Natural and Mystical Impulses," Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O'keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin and

Florence Pierce, London - New York: Merrell Pub Ltd, 2009, 60.
22 Ibid., 61.
23 Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation Correspondence Photocopies, File (Box) number:12, Martin, Agnes 1950-1953

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[Figure 15-16].
I respond to the subtle Nohtan felt in the air of the Northern New
Mexico, as what is reminiscent of the rich shades of blue in thewater [Figure 17]. In fact it was an inland sea billions of years ago.
And there are ‘waves of mountains’ that the locals adore.
Especially walking into the liquid light hours at dusk, it feels likebeing under the water. I have found these hours (of floating)overwhelmingly beautiful [Figure 18].
Though I have absolutely steeped myself in the grand nature
here in this way, I am aware that Martin actively refuted claims
that her paintings referred to nature. And as I discussed earlier
on, I respect this understanding that her paintings, after the grid,are “not landscapes at all but rather aesthetic systems”, according
to Hudson. For Martin, nature was rather “a way to register thetriggers for an occasion of awareness that perfection might
exist”24. As Martin confessed, “(M)y response to nature is really a
response to beauty… We may be looking at the ocean when weare aware of beauty but it is
not the ocean”25.

Fig. 15-16. Agnes Martin, Untitled #6 (detail),
1980, acrylic, graphite and gesso on canvas, 72 x
72inch, New Mexico Museum of Art Collection,
Photo by the author, July 2019

Fig. 17-18. Utako Shindo, Untitled (Dawn), 2019,natural pigment gesso on canvas, 32 x 32inch2-4) Beauty_ in-between the waves
When I took ‘the inevitable path (pitfall)’ in my studio work, I surrendered myself to the darkness ofthe forest in Taos. At two am I found myself utterly sinking in the perfect beauty, ‘fantastic extremes’,of the deep shadows as the flashes of star and moonlight cut through ‘dark’ forest, stream andemotion [Figure 19-21]. As a matter of fact, the night is when the earth is in its own shade. And it is
24 Hudson, Agnes Martin: Night Sea, 43.
25 Agnes Martin “The current of the river of life moves us”, Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances, 164

9the time when we are reminded of where we originated: the source of our life; perhaps the perfectlove of the motherhood.

Fig. 19-21. Utako Shindo, Night Sight # 1-3 (work in progress), digital image, 2019

I was simply shocked by the fact that we are blind under the sunlight to this intense beauty. And evenat night, most of my life, which has been in the suburban setting, has missed it.
After coming back to my studio/residence (Forde Visser Archive,
Southwest) [Figure 22-23], I learnt that the building was designed tobring (waves of) ‘atmosphere’ (light and heat hence darkness andcoldness) into its interior. So I guided myself to dwell in the kind of
darkness in which Tanizaki and Isozaki found beauty.
(And, with water color, pencil and white sheets of paper, I tried tocapture the subtle light in the darkness; the street light coming
through the trees and the window, appearing on the studio wallvery subtly [Figure 24].)
Noticing this beauty getting lost in the process of modernization,
Tanizaki was motivated to write ‘In Praise of Shadows’, so that hecould advocate Pre-modern Japanese aesthetics. It values shadow
more than the actual objects or structures of architecture, where theshadow is oriented towards beauty and people are expected todifferentiate subtle degrees of shades in order to“complete” the beauty. (Each room has a slightly
different colored wall in these architecture.)

Fig. 22-23. Linda Swanson’s Forde Visser Archive
Southwest (exterior and outdoor views) , Photoby the author, March 2019

His voice is certainly not far from a stream of Easternthought known as Zen Articulation. The Japanesephilosopher Izutsu Toshihiko, describes that Zen
Articulation comes as a flash that emerges from thedepth of, what he calls, ba/field, which is filled by ‘fertilesilence’, which I would like to paraphrase as ‘nuanced
shadow-light’.
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Fig. 24. Utako Shindo, Studio shot with studies and Before thedawn (center), Photo by the author, January 2020‘Empty mind’, of which Agnes speaks, should not be
entirely empty but rather filled with subtle degrees ofshades, grounded on such a foundational field, fromwhich her artwork shimmers [Figure 25].
The title of the work [Figure 26] is one word: ‘grass’. It is
not used instrumentally to articulate ‘grass’ semanticallyor figuratively, but to articulate something non-articulative
about the experience of ‘grass’, in other words ‘suchnessof the grass’. In the sense of Zen Articulation, thisdemonstrates a poetic use of language as it fuses what isboth said and not said, like how we are meant to readbetween the lines of verse. As a form of visual language,
the lines are drawn utterly as motion is concentrated. It is
the waving motions of the grass as such. And in between
these motions or lines, the space is opened, as pure
abstraction.

Fig. 25. Agnes Martin, Untitled #5, 2002, acrylic and graphite
on canvas, 60x60 inch, installation view at Kayane Griffin
Corcoran, LA, Photo by the author, October, 2019

Having discussed my experience and contemplation
with variant waves, as that of ocean, air, mountains or
grasses, let me elaborate on the term, ‘Zäsur’, meaningthe ‘pure word’, “a counter-rhythmical interruption”26(the closest is caesura in English). It is expressed by the17th century German poet and translator, Friedrich
Hölderlin, in his discussion on philosophy of art, basedon his translation of the Greek tragedy, Oedipus. Zäsur(the pure word) is both a temporal and spatial term as it
Fig. 26. Agnes Martin, Grass, 1963, black ink on paper, 9 x 9inch
indicates silence (the gap) between sounds (words) in apoem. When Hölderlin’s German concept, Zäsur, isparaphrased by the Japanese translator and scholar, Michio Mitzuki, it is called, “ma positioned aftera unit of rhyme”. This expression is based on the common knowledge that ma “refers to the blankpart, such as the distance between two points or the pause between two sounds”. As Mitsuki
articulates, “a language with no meaning and no content can be a ‘creative word’”27.
The attitude or state of mind towards such creativity can be found in the Japanese expression of‘Nami no ma ni ma ni Tadayou'（波の間に間に漂う）, which (literally) means ‘to drift in between the
breaking of waves’ (in turn, ’ to drift in the mercy of waves’).
26 Hölderlin’s Sophocles – Oedipus &Antigone, trans. David Constantine, (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2001), 63.
27 Trans. the author, Michio Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation”, Interpretation and Translation Studies no.9 (2009): 189.

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This image of ‘Nami no ma ni ma ni Tadayou’（波の間に間に漂う）is derived from the lines in a famous
ancient waka (by Michizane Sugawara): ‘Momiji no nishiki Kami no Ma ni Ma ni’, meaning ‘a brocadeof crimson leaves, here along with the gods’. By taking into account the fact that Hölderlin’s notion,
Zäsur, was born out of his translation of the Greek tragedy, Oedipus, and the gods (which is plural) in
Japan include the spirits of deceased people, the remainder of someone or some life emerges inbetween the successive waves of ocean or leaves, but only instantaneously. It is like a shadow ofsomeone whom you love, momentary comes into your mind and escapes. Indeed, Tanizaki
recognizes shadows also as ‘a nuance of love’, as expressed in the word, omo-kage（面 影）(kagemeaning shadow, omo meaning face, together as ‘shadow of a face’, indicating an image that
reminds one of someone else that is similar but different. )3) LOVE
This brief moment of love excites and disappoints us. In
between, we learn to long for love, patiently, and to appreciate
how beauty presents the possibility or the memory of being
touched by love. My dear friend Linda Swanson, artist and hostof my project, practices ‘dead man’ s float’ every day in Venice
LA [Figure 27], as her act of touching her father who crossed
the very Pacific Ocean during WW2 and practiced this survival
technique in the navy. I have once joined her in floating. I
closed my eyes, put my face in the water, held my breath andreleased all the tension. The ocean was, then, dark. I was held
between being panicked and calm. It is like being in midcreativity, where I struggle to articulate something nonarticulative or translatable. But I was also sensing the light, likethe possibility of transforming it into a poetic expression, Fig. 27. Venice Beach, LA, aerial view, Photo by theauthor, November 2019
through which I overcome myself, as though being
metamorphosed. In Agnes’ words, it is our memory ofperfection, where we are from: which is to me, love, that processes every life on the earth through its
tremendous suffering to give it birth.
Love is ‘motion’ expressed to move life forward. It is the universal e-motion that enable us to remain
alive.
Her work, in our neighborhood town Taos, ‘Untitled (LOVE)’ [Figure 28], permanently shows us thepath from where we come and where we should be going.

12The series of various shades of blue and the successive lines
of concentrated motion [Figure 29] together draw an opening
path, which is not for any transaction, purely directional,
pointing to the open air. Like the Great North Road in Chaco
Canyon [Figure 30], which had no use except indicating where
Chaco people (they) are from, which is the truth of our life(too). It is not instrumental but poetic, in a rigorous sense thatit resists being swallowed up by the mere economical
exchanges of meanings or means. It is such a work that art canaccomplish on behalf of everyone’s right to be reminded oflove.
Towards the end of her life, Martin made a book about her belief,
entitled, The Religion of Love :In the beginning, there was only love and it filled the world.
That’s how it was in the beginning….Love makes us want to do
all the good things. Get up in the morning and work forlife….Love is all around us like air; pressing in on us, making us
more like love. Making us love the people and want to treat
them well, making us help the people if they want help.28
In discussing this, Agnes answers in the interview, “it (Love) makes us
good. That’s my origin”29.
The origin of her own or her artistic path is real. Love
penetrates all her works, which is characterized as‘tendering’, by Richard Tuttle who collaborated with Agnes
on The Religion of Love. In fact, I can prove from myexperiences that all the people who admire her works areperpetuating her love and distributing it through their way ofloving art, people and all living things. Throughout my yearlong project in New Mexico, everything I have done,
discovered or experienced was enabled because of the truly
loving support (help) that I received from these people. I
knew no one intimately before I came here. But now I am
filled with the feeling of love towards every one of you. Andof course towards Agnes Martin, who was so aware of theFig. 30. Looking towards the direction of The Great
North Road from Pueblo Alto, Chaco Culture National
Historical Park, New Mexico, Photo by the author,
November 201928 Agnes Martin & Richard Tuttle (Illustration), Religion of Love, Köln; Slp edi8on, Walther König, 2016
29 Agnes Martin: Between the Lines, Directed by Leon d'Avigdor, Munich: Leon d'Avigdor Films, Inc. 2016, DVD

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Fig. 28-29. Agnes Martin, Untitled (Love),
1993-1994, Acrylic on linen, 60 1/16”x 60
1/16”inch, Agnes Martin Gallery, Harwood
Museum of Art, Photo by the author,
September 2019

hardship of life, hence, worked so hard to gently guide us to open our minds. She writes30:
The process of life [love] is hidden from us.
The meaning of suffering [transformation/metamorphosis] is held from us.
And we are blind to life. [Art touches us, to let us open our heart to see it]31
It is now my turn to work as a fine artist to open (mine then) our heart in the name of love.
Her legacy is planted in the world (New Mexico, US andbeyond), that is what I felt strongly about through my project.
And it is we who continue to work for opening our hearts andothers, each in our own way. I will work to remain truly creative
in my pursuit to embody the untranslatable [Figure 31]. Then,in the current world where our blindness keeps us on a wrong
path, our work shall be more meaningful than ever.
Thank you for your listening (reading).

Fig. 31. Utako Shindo, opening path (detail), 2019, carbon transfer onvellum 11x9 inch

30 Agnes Martin, "On the Perfection Underlying Life"
31 Words in bracket and gray font are inserted by the author as memoranda. They were not read out to the audiences during the talk.

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