Formal Marble 2011

Brice Marden made ‘Formal Marble’ with what looks like wax and pigment on paper. The shapes are so simple – rectangles, squares, a triangle – but they create this weird tension. The colours are quiet but strong. I think about that blue, almost like a faded memory, right next to a bright yellow. And that green square! It's not flat; it feels alive with little brushstrokes and layers, like it was coaxed into being. Look at the way Marden lets the texture of the paper show through. It’s not about hiding the process, but embracing it. Up in the right corner, that marble effect – it's like a tiny landscape stuck inside the painting, like a secret world. Marden's earlier grid paintings come to mind; this feels like a broken, looser version of that. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin's quiet grids but with more mess. It's like he's saying, 'Here's a structure, now let’s see what happens when we mess it up a little.'