Untitled (Abstraction) 1948

Here's a gridded world made by John Hultberg using ink on paper. It feels like a meditation on seeing itself. I can imagine Hultberg, maybe in a quiet room, letting the ink pool and spread, making these little worlds in each square. He's got these dark, blocky shapes and thin lines. It’s all black and white, which somehow makes it feel more immediate, like he's just capturing what's right in front of him. The texture is soft and a little smudgy, like he’s working fast, trying to get an idea down before it disappears. Some of these shapes remind me of boats, or maybe abstract landscapes. Then there’s the cross that suggests a spiritual dimension to the image. It makes me think about Agnes Martin and her grids, but where she's all about calm, Hultberg is a bit more restless. Artists, we're all just riffing off each other, trying to figure out how to make sense of the world, one mark at a time. It's a feeling, you know?