Formal Marble 2011

Brice Marden made Formal Marble with oil and wax on paper mounted on board. I can imagine Marden working on this, how he might have laid down each geometric section of colour, adjusting the tone just so, seeing how each plane of the composition relates to the others. What’s interesting here is the way he's used wax to create this surface of unevenness. It's not a smooth, flat picture plane, but something subtly textural. And I think the addition of the black marble effect creates a beautiful tension. It’s like, what is real? What is fake? What is the relationship between something that's been made and something that has been found? I remember seeing a show of his in New York and being really moved by the way that the colours seemed to almost glow from within. Like he’d somehow managed to capture light itself. The way he makes use of colour reminds me of Agnes Martin. You can see he is thinking about how lines and colours can change how we see and feel. It's a formal painting, yes, but one that’s alive with feeling.