I was introduced to the paintings of Agnes Martin at an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art when I lived in New York. Her work is rooted in spirituality, as is her meditation practice - both of which were unfamiliar subjects to me at that time. Although her paintings were radically different from the colorful expressionists and fauvists that usually drew my attention, they moved me deeply and remained in my consciousness.
I became aware of her influence when I moved to California and was drawn to photograph the meditative qualities of the landscapes I encountered there, with their unbroken horizontal bands of color. I used a documentary style as well as intentional camera movement to create abstractions of these landscapes.
I enjoyed witnessing children and adults contemplating these beautiful places. They remind me of Martin’s series of six paintings entitled “With My Back to the World” which encapsulates her worldview that art sits outside of the care and corruption of the world. She described “that painting could be a world without objects, without interruption. It is to accept the necessity of…going into a field of vision as would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.”