Grand Street 1969

Brice Marden made this painting, called Grand Street, with oil and wax on canvas. Look at the way the pink sits between the grey and the white. What was he thinking? I wonder what the artist was trying to do here, laying down those blocks of colour like that. It's so quiet, but forceful, you know? Look at the surface, it's almost translucent. You can imagine the hours he spent layering the paint, building it up so it's both matte and luminous. It's like he's trying to find a feeling, a mood, with just three colours. When I look at this, I think of Agnes Martin and the way she used colour to create a sense of space. Like her, he's making the painting a place to be, a place to think. We’re all just adding to each other's work, bouncing off what came before, and pushing things forward. Painting's like that, it's a conversation across time, and everyone's invited to join in.