St. Barts 10 1991

This is Brice Marden’s St. Barts 10, a delicate drawing made with ink. It’s all about the act of painting itself. The eye pings around the surface, following looping lines that cluster and intersect. I wonder what it was like for Marden to make this. Perhaps the pen hovered and stuttered, unsure, before diving in. Did the landscape of St. Barts inform this work? I can imagine him thinking about Cy Twombly as he made this. His graphic sensibility shines through, the black ink creating a sense of depth, like branches against a winter sky. One particular gesture catches my eye: a dark loop near the top left corner. It almost seems to drip down the surface of the painting, like a tear. It’s a powerful, visceral mark that resonates with emotion. The ink is thin in places, thick in others, so you can see all of the decisions he made. Painters are always in conversation with each other, borrowing ideas across time. Each artwork is a testament to the idea that painting is a form of embodied expression. There's no fixed interpretation, just the possibility of meaning.