BIOGRAPHY
Dynamic Sublimity: Donald Martiny's Brushstrokes by Donald Kuspit
Initially in Turner, Delacroix, and the Barbizon School, the brush stroke was made more noticeable, and this appearance was to increase under impressionist. The imitative or descriptive function of painting was increasingly diminished by the growing prominence of the physical substance of which a painting is made, the paint...Finally the whole brush stroke leaps forth dramatically in the work of van Gogh.
The brush stroke now becomes for the first time a distinct, separate unit of artistic expression.
James Mann, Beyond Post-Modernism: Manifesto of Vandalism(1)
We call that sublime which is absolutely great. Beauty is connected with the form of the object, having boundaries, while the sublime is to be found in a formless object, represented by a pointlessness.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement
Donald Martiny's paintings look straightforward--dramatically expressive gestural works, some small and invitingly intimate, most grand and intimidatingly large, all blatantly colorful, sometimes with a singular color in a sweeping shape, at other times with contrasting colors and intersecting shapes, dialectically interacting however at odds, subliminally reconciled however ostensibly irreconcilable--but that is deceptive, for they are as much abstract sculptures as abstract paintings, sometimes suspended in space, sometimes stranded on a wall, as though they were fragments of some grand mural. If, as Hans Hofmann wrote, "the mystery of plastic creation is based upon the dualism of the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional,"(3) then the mystery of Donald Martiny's plastic creations is that they are two-dimensional and three-dimensional--paintings and sculptures--at once, and as such paradoxically monistic rather than dualistic. For Martiny painting and sculpture--traditionally separated however often a sculpture may be given a skin of paint, and painterly texture may give a painting sculptural resonance--are implicitly the same. Martiny's works are subjectively expressive--convey feeling, often intense, as the abruptness of the gestures suggest (they have a meteoric presence, as though articulated on the spur of the visual moment)--even as they show a mastery of the material medium of paint that makes them exemplary modernist works.
But what makes them truly mysterious--paradoxical--is their compacted sublimity. To allude to the Kant epigraph, Martiny's brushstrokes are formless objects given precise form, and as such beautiful as well as sublime, implicitly boundless and uncontainable yet explicitly bounded and self-contained. His brushstrokes have an emblematic charisma, all the more so when they boldly seem to emerge from the canvas-like white wall on which they are displayed, their color-saturated fullness finessing its vacuous flatness. Seemingly suspended in its open space, they acquire a sculptural presence, a three-dimensional resonance. As though frozen in flight, they appear in its luminous absence like devilish angels, alive with impulsive power. Surely Weyto, 2014, Ifo, 2016, and Elmolo, 2017 have a wing-like presence, at least to my hyperactive imagination--are the two feather-like forms in Zhang Zhang, 2016 the wings of some fallen Icarus? More pointedly and art historically, virtually all of Martiny's brushstrokes, including such relatively static ones as those in Abipo, Esume, and Kpato, all 2017, have kinetic power that links them with the Neo-Plasticism of Naum Gabo.
"Who has not admired in the Victory of Samothrace," Gabo wrote in 1937, "the so-called dynamic rhythms, the imaginary forward movement incorporated in this sculpture? The expression of motion is the main purpose of the composition of the lines and masses of this work."(4) Are Martiny's brushstrokes not linear masses? To label them Neo-Expressionist is to miss the fact that they are "kinetic constructions in space," to use Gabo's phrase--to sell their heritage short, a heritage Martiny acknowledges by way of his admiration for the work of the Polish constructive sculptor Katarzyna Kobro, whose Space Composition 4, 1929 is "absolutely remarkable in the way (it) uniquely organizes space." Clearly she rather than Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning is Martiny's inspiration--his muse. Conveniently labeled abstract expressionist, seen in art historical perspective Martiny's brushstrokes read as neo-plastic constructions. More pointedly, they epitomize the neo-plastic ambition of conveying "the sensation of real kinetic rhythms passing in space," as Gabo put it, as he compared it with "the arts of Music and Choreography."(5) Martiny's neo-plastic constructions seem to dance in space like frozen music, the perfect art, as Walter Pater famously argued, for in it form and content are inseparable and indistinguishable. Martiny's brushstrokes can be read as resounding musical notes as well as grand physical gestures, reminding us that from the start abstract painting aspired to the condition of music, as Kandinsky implied when he wrote that "the affinity between painting and music is evident."(6)
According to Gabo, in a statement that amounts to the credo of pure art, "Every single shape made 'absolute' acquires a life of its own, speaks its own language, and represents one single emotional impact attached only to itself. Shapes act, shapes influence our psyches, shapes are events and Beings...The emotional force of an absolute shape is immediate, irresistible, and universal."(7) This suggests that every shape is spontaneously created, and as such has a life of its own. Uniquely itself, it becomes emblematic of the self as such. More pointedly, each and every one of Martiny's brushstrokes reads as "the spontaneous gesture of the True Self in action," to use the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott's famous distinction between the True and False Self.(8) "Only the True Self can be creative," for it is "closely linked with...the Primary Process," and as such is "not reactive to external stimuli, but primary." Martiny's brushstrokes epitomize primary creativity, all the more so because they are not reactive to external stimuli--woman in de Kooning's case, as Woman I, 1950 makes clear; nature in Pollock's case, as Autumn Rhythm, 1950 makes clear--but convey the "kinetic rhythms" of "creative impulses," to use Gabo's words, or, psychoanalytically speaking, they bespeak the "motor intentionality" of primary process.
Noteworthily, Martiny uses the words of extinct languages of so-called primitive people to title his brushstrokes. He spent some time with 200 indigenous people in Bolivia's Modidi rainforest--the last of their tribe. He doesn't want to use numbers to name his brushstrokes, for they are too cold and distant, nor terms that give them a narrative meaning. In contrast, the primitive words of primitive people are heart-felt, that is, convey the feeling of primary aliveness--"energy and life in its most elemental form," as Emil Nolde put it--that primitive people are thought to have by so-called civilized people, alienated from "primeval vitality" and with that primary creativity (and emotional reality) epitomized by the primitive words (and art) of primitive people. These (artful) words flash with the libidinous intensity and terse directness of primary process, as Martiny's brushstrokes do. Fascination with primitive or native cultures, epitomizing primary creativity--native or inborn creativity--to Western eyes, has been a staple of art since Gauguin. But where for him it meant the repudiation of Western society and values, Martiny's mural--named Unami, the extinct language of the Lanape, an Indian tribe that once inhabited large parts of the states of New York and New Jersey--in the ultra-modern World Trade Center One building in New York City, suggest, however ironically, that it can be the saving grace of Western society, and has value in itself, as Martiny's brushstrokes do.
Notes
(1)James Mann, Beyond Post-Modernism: Manifesto of Vandalism (Santa Fe: Bell Tower Editions, 2015), 53
(2)Hannah Ginsborg, "Kant's Aesthetics and Teleology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005, 2013
(3)"Hans Hofmann, excerpts from his teaching," Theories of Modern Art, ed. Herschel B. Chippy (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1971), 540
(4)Ibid., 334-335
(5)Ibid., 335
(6)Ibid., 347
(7)Ibid., 336
(8)D. W. Winnicott, "Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self," The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (New York: International Universities Press, 1965), 146
CV
Born 1953, Schenectady, NY
EDUCATION
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
The Art Students League, New York, NY
New York University, New York, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019
Rossovermiglio Arte, Padova, Italy | Donald Martiny, Testo critico: Barba Luciana Cenere | 11 May - 10 June 2019
Singular Forms, Madison Gallery | May 25 - July 22, 2019
ImaginArt, Barcelona | May 9 - Jun 30, 2019
Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia | Mar 16 - Apr 27, 2019
2018
Sponder Gallery at VOLTA NY, March 7-11
Donald Martiny: Epistrophy, Galleri Urbane | Oct 13 - Nov 10, 2018
With Galerie Klaus Braun, Art Karlsruhe - Rheinstetten, Germany - February 22nd-25th
Freeing the Gesture - Historic City Hall, Lake Charles, LA - opening January 12th
Overtones/ Undercurrents - Horace Williams House, Preservation Chapel Hill, NC - November 5th -26th, 2017
ArteA Gallery, Milan, Italy - November 25th 2017 - 13th January 2018
Donald Martiny, New Works - Diehl Gallery, Jackson, WY - July 20th - August 15th
2017
Sponder Gallery at Art Market San Francisco - April 26th - April 30th
Pentimenti Gallery at Volta, New York, NY - March 1st - March 5th
Pittura a Macchia - Madison Gallery, La Jolla, CA - February 18th – April 2nd
2016
Après Ski and Art - Diehl Gallery, Jackson, WY - December
Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall, UK - November 26 - January 28, 2017
Galleri Urbane Dallas, TX - October 15 - November 12
Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, DE - September 23 - November 5
Donald Martiny Paintings, Freeing the Gesture - Alden B Dow Museum of Art and Science, Midland, MI - September
Made in Paint, Golden - New Berlin, NY - April 19 - August 19
Donald Martiny, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2015
Donald Martiny | Gestures, University of North Carolina | John and June Allcott Gallery, Curated by Elin O'Hara Slavic, director of graduate studies at UNC, June 10-July 1
Donald Martiny | Gestures, Madison Gallery, La Jolla, CA, July 11-August 12
2014
Donald Martiny: Freeing the Gesture, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
Donald Martiny Paintings and Works on Paper, Curated by Janusz Jaworski, Courtesy of the Durst Organization. Condé Nast Atrium, New York, NY
George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2013
Galleri Urbane Marfa+Dallas, Dallas, TX
George Lawson Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
Carrack Modern Art, Durham, NC
2011
POST Herman Street Studios, Philadelphia, PA
2010
Donald Martiny: Prototypes and Studies, High Point Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
Palazzo Tito, Bevilaqua La Masa Foundation in Padova, Italy
Artist-Collector, A Contemporary Print Exhibition, Curated by Brian Gonzales | February 3 - February 17 | Rewaq Gallery, College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sharja, UAE
Art Karlsruhe, February 21-24 | With Galerie Klaus Braun | Rheinstetten, Germany
Arte Fiera Bologna, February 1 -4, With ArteA Gallery | Bologna, Italy
Simply Red | Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, January 26 - March 30
Untitled Art Fair, January 18 - 20 with Sponder Gallery
Art Palm Beach January 10-13 with ImaginArt Gallery
2018
Art Miami, Sponder Gallery, December 4 - 9
Pinta Miami, Dec 5-9, with ImaginArt Gallery
Emergence, Dimmitt Contemporary Art, November 8 - January 4
Art Nashville, October 17 - 21
Art Seattle, August 2 - 5, with Sponder Gallery
Art Aspen, July 27 - 30, with Sponder Gallery
Art Market Hamptons, July 5 - 8, with Sponder Gallery
Roter Faden, Schwartz | Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, June 15 - September 1st, 2018
Modern & Contemporary Art West Palm Beach, FL - January 12 - 18th, with Sponder Gallery
2017
Art Miami, Miami, FL - December 5 - 10th, with Sponder Gallery
Juxtaposition - Celia Johnson & Donald Martiny | ArtSpace, Raleigh, NC - September 1st - October 21st
The Enduring Reasons Why - Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA - September 16th - October 21st
Remember when this wasn't quite how I remembered it? - Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA - June - July
View Elbe - Klaus Braun Gallery, Stuttgart, Deutschland - June
Dialectical Praxis - Celia Johnson, Donald Martiny, Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT - April
2016
I'TS ALL ABOUT THE HUE, Curated by Edie Carpenter, director GreenHill Center for NC Art, GreenHill Center for NC Art, Greensboro, NC, Feburary 5-April 3
2015
Pino Pinelli, Donald Martiny, Bram Bogart, ArtA Gallery, Milan, Italy, October-November
Is it...Monochrome, Colorfield, or Object?, Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, May 30-August 1
INTERACT: East Wing Biennial, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, (With Bridget Riley, Julie Mehretu, and Felix Gonzalez Torres) January 25, 2014-June 2015
State of the Art | Art of the State, Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC, September 20, 2014-February 12, 2015
2014
Complementary Colors, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, (with Clint Jukkala, Peter Combe, Alexix Grawell), October 3-October 26, 2014
China Art Projects, Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, China
7 x FARBE PUR | Monochrome Malerei, Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, Germany,(with Beatriz Barral, Christiane Conrad, matthias Lutzeyer, Pino Pinelli, Barbara Uetrecht)
25 Years: Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Cologne, Germany
Two Artists: Donald Martiny and Sherna Teperson, Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sidney, Australia
2013
International Art Biennale non-objective, Curated by Roland Orépük, Pont de Claix, France
Fundaments, Galerie Concret, Paris France, (With Alain Biltereyst, Louise Blyton)
Ice Water, Flyswatter: Abstract Painting on Holiday, in the Philadelphia Summer, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, PA, Curated by Douglas Witmer
Summer, George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Dallas Art Fair, Galleri Urbane, Marfa+Dallas, Dallas, TX
Raleigh Fine Arts Society’s North Carolina Artists Exhibition,Curated by Bill Dunlap, Raleigh Fine Arts Society, Raleigh, NC
Unfettered, Curated by Katharine Adkins, Assistnt Curator of Exhibitions, The Nasher Museum of Art
Visual Art Exchange Gallery, Raleigh, NC
Open Source, Curated by Elysia Borowy-Reeder, Executive director, Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, Visual Art Exchange Gallery, Raleigh, NC
2012
Miami Aqua, George Lawson Gallery, Miami, FL
Painting to Sculpture, Curated by John Anderson, Associate Professor of Art, Marlboro Gallery, Prince George Community College, Largo, MD
This and That, Harris Warren Gallery, Wake Forest, NC
2011
New Abstraction, Speakeasy Gallery, Boonton, NJ
AWARDS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS:
The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts residency grant, April-May, 2015.
Dave Bown Projects - 9th Semiannual Competition (curated by Steven Matijcio, Curator, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Dominic Molon, Curator of Contemporary Art,
RISD Museum; and Marina Pacini, Chief Curator and Curator of American, Modern, and Contemporary Art, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art) Honorable Mention