Agnes Martin: The mind knows what the eye has not seen

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Anes Martin, "Untitled (Image #4)," 1998

lithograph on paper. Collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

The exhibition is curated by Bruce Hugh Russell and Naomi Potter, with Elizabeth Diggon.

In 1967, Agnes Martin unequivocally abandoned painting, gave up her New York studio, and, with a white pick-up truck and an Airstream trailer, set out on road trip. She travelled first to California, and then to her birthplace in Saskatchewan, before finally settling in the Southwestern United States, where she had lived prior to her decade-long sojourn in New York. Martin would live in New Mexico for the rest of her life.

On a Clear Day, a portfolio of thirty screenprints created in 1973 at the invitation of print publisher Robert Feldman of Parasol Press, marked Martin’s return to artistic practice. It represents an idealized exploration of the potential vocabulary of the grid, Martin’s chosen subject for much of her painting career.

This exhibition offers an unprecedented focus on Martin’s print works, in addition to selected paintings that exist in dialogue with the prints. A parallel collection of ephemera and source material introduces Martin’s life and work, focusing on her on-going relationship to Canada – her childhood in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, as well as her later travels in Canada.

This exhibition is co-produced by Esker Foundation and MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.