Riphaeus Mountain Region of the Moon 1972

Nancy Graves made this map-like picture of the Riphaeus Mountain Region of the Moon with colored pencil and graphite, and it’s all about process. Looking at all those tiny marks makes me think about the labor of art, the way an artist can get lost in the doing. The surface is a field of pale pink, dotted with blues, yellows and lavenders. The effect is strangely calming, like a pastel dream of outer space. Little scribbles and dots are everywhere. I can imagine Graves making each tiny mark, letting the image slowly emerge. There's a kind of obsessive quality to it, a dedication to detail that reminds me of Agnes Martin's grids, but messier and more playful. See that squiggly line, kind of reddish? It seems to wander across the surface, like a path, tying different areas together. Graves was clearly fascinated by maps and diagrams and the way we try to make sense of the world through images. It feels like a conversation with earlier cartographers, but with a modern sensibility. It’s a reminder that art isn’t about perfect representation, it's about how we see and feel.