Donald Martiny

Written By uzomah ugwu for Arte Realizzata

Donald Martiny is an American Contemporary painter and fine artist, who is known for his use of color in his abstract paintings. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in art galleries and art spaces such as the Conny Dietzschold Gallery, the Cameron Art Museum, the Diehl Gallery, Market Art + Design Hamptons, and many more. His work is held in collections such as the Grahm Gund Family Foundation, One World Trade Center, the Newcomb Art Museum, and elsewhere. Martiny has lectured at Cornell University and at the Ackland Art Museum. His artwork has received press and been in publications internationally, most recently he has been featured in Architectural Digest. I had the pleasure and honor to ask Donald what has been his most challenging project as of yet, what drew him to making abstract art, and how he hopes people feel when they see his art.

You may not be able to eat in Gwyneth Paltrow’s dining room or hang on Oprah's Montecito patio, but with more A-list decorators branching into restaurant interior design, you can tap into the style of the stars. Many designers best known for the celebrity projects in their portfolios have recently expanded to projects at eateries around the world. It’s an opportunity to showcase to a wider audience their prowess in pattern mixing, furniture and art sourcing, and creating a mood where you want to linger long after the final course. Because restaurants, of course, are about more than just design. These spaces also serve as places to gather for cocktails or enjoy delicious food. Below, we gather some examples of spaces where you can indulge in style.

Congratulations Donald Martiny on the recent acquisition of 3 works on paper by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Ft. Worth, TX

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art was established through the generosity of Amon G. Carter Sr. (1879-1955) to house his collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell; to collect, preserve, and exhibit the finest examples of American art; and to serve all communities through exhibitions, publications, and experiences devoted to the celebration of American creativity.

Whitehot Magazine | Disclosures: Donald Martiny, or Figures Without Ground

By DONOVAN IRVEN, November 2020

The art of Donald Martiny exists somewhere between painting and sculpture. We are confronted with a singular brushstroke, huge, a seemingly spontaneous, lavish eruption of color and texture on the wall. It is the mark distilled from painting, the formerly minute detail writ large, what we usually discover as a hidden and obscured part of the whole is made to be the whole itself, the entire work a gesture on the wall. 

Such dramatic works are fit for public art – Martiny is currently preparing to install a large work on the exterior of a building in Raleigh, North Carolina and is well known for his permanent displays in the lobby of One World Trade Center in New York City. But they also lend themselves to powerful aesthetic experiences in more intimate galleries, as will be evident in upcoming solo shows in March 2021 at the Scala del Bovoli in Venice, Italy.

Front Burner: Highlights in Contemporary North Carolina Painting

March 7, 2020 – February 14, 2021

East Building, Level B, Joyce W. Pope Gallery, North Carolina Museum of Art

 Throughout modern art history, painting has been declared dead and later resuscitated so many times that the issue now tends to largely be ignored. Despite any debate over painting’s viability, artists continue to persevere in keeping the medium fresh and new. Currently painting is enjoying a revival in the art world, and innovative North Carolina artists are helping to maintain its vibrant place on the front burner.

View images of our recent collaboration with Wecselman Design at One Park Grove, Miami.

This stunning model unit includes work by Lluis Barba, Stanley Boxer, Lynn Chadwick, Dan Christensen, Max-Steven Grossman, Jane Manus, Donald Martiny, James Austin Murray, Udo Noger, Ernest Trova, Tigran Tsitoghdzyan and Bernar Venet.

Donald Martiny will participate in the inaugural Summer Residency at Tivoli New York sponsored by the Pfaff Foundation, Judy Pfaff, and M. David & Co, Michael David.

Judy Pfaff, who was born in London, received her MFA from Yale University where she studied with Al Held. Her work spans across disciplines from painting to printmaking to sculpture to installation. She has work in the permanent collections of MoMA, Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among many others. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center, the MacArthur Foundation Award, and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Pfaff lives and works in Tivoli, NY.

Michael David has exhibited with Sidney Janis Gallery and M. Knoedler & Co. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles among many others. Additionally David has established and directed two successful galleries in Brooklyn: Life on Mars and M. David & Co.

Azure Development's $2,190,000 show house in Delray Beach hosts thirteen artworks from Sponder Gallery's roster of important artists.

Artists Include:

Stanley Boxer, Dan Christensen, Max-Steven Grossman, Kysa Johnson, Jane Manus, Donald Martiny, James Austin Murray, Udo Noger, Tigran Tsitoghdzyan and James Walsh

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.

Best known for his ‘frozen’ brushstrokes, Donald Martiny’s large scale abstractions manage to be both sculptural and painterly, while somehow effecting the action of performance art. It is no wonder then that Open, Martiny’s latest solo exhibition on view till January 2nd at the Dimmitt Contemporary Art in Houston, continues the artist’s exploration of the "gesture," which is made to exist forever in the present. Katarina at ARS sat down with the artist to talk contemporary culture, artistic influences, and the surprisingly delightful taste of a blue crayon.

KATARINA: Your newest show at the Dimmit Contemporary Art is called “OPEN,” which the curator writes is a reference to “the action of the viewer, rather than the object itself.” For all your viewers out there, what do you think we can all be a little more 'open' to and why?