agnes martin, friendship (1963). museum of modern art, new york.
gold leaf.
it glows. wherever the light hits. your form leaves a darkened center when you stand in front of it. a shadow.
as you move around it, it changes. changes everything about itself. colour, texture, hue, dimension.
from the left it takes on the shape of paper time cards stacked beside a clock. from the right it smooths out like an expanding field of wheat. a sea of gold. far enough back it’s smooth & faint.
up close it becomes rugged, pocked with texture & moments of almost red scratched through. the lines, etched down to the canvas, become gashes across a face or the raised scars on a wrist. the moments of red… blood?
it undulates & the gold rolls as you tilt your head. between water & oil…
something else, mercury like & waiting to either poison you or wrap you in warmth.
I close my eyes. I can feel the gold on my face like the sun.