I Part of Sabine D Region, Southwest Mare Tranquilitatis from Lithographs Based on Geologic Maps of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo Landing Sites 1972

Nancy Graves made this lithograph of the Sabine D Region on the moon using a bunch of tiny dots. It’s like she’s mapping out not just the surface of the moon, but also the process of seeing. Look at how the colors build up, a pointillist style, layer upon layer. The texture is flat, printed on the page, but the colors and tiny marks create a strange sense of depth. There’s an area over on the left, where blues, greens, and whites cluster to create an ethereal effect. It’s like looking at a nebula, or maybe even the Earth from far, far away. Graves, like Vija Celmins, was into science and mapping. But where Celmins is cool, calm, and collected, Graves is more playful, intuitive. It reminds us that art can be about exploration. Not just of the world, but of the materials at hand.