NEW YORK, NY.- Stephen Haller Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by American artist Lloyd Martin. The exhibition, entitled Shift, opens January 14th and runs through February 20th.
In this new body of work Martin continues his exploration of the transformative nature of time and use; the decay as well as revitalization of the urban landscape around his studio, which provides the primary inspiration for his rhythmically constructed abstract paintings. Critic Jonathon Goodman writes: “Martin takes on the vigor and grit of modern city life…the surface is gridlike but roughed up, as if the toughness of urban existence had made its way into the painting.”
A Rhode Island School of Design graduate, Martin has just been honored with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Painting. He has twice been awarded Fellowships in Drawing, revealing his heightened awareness of line and form. That skill is evidenced in his set of prints which have been acquired by The Cleveland Museum of Art for their permanent collection.
The artist is influenced by the immediacy of working in the post-industrial environment of his studio, yet his work is also informed by a hybrid of images, from abstractions of architectural forms to, in his words, “the influence of Indian tantric painting and the kinds of logics displayed in those miniature meditative structures.”
The shift in the title heralds Martin’s deepening involvement with color. The main gallery will feature the centerpiece of Martin’s show, Current, a 72 by 144 inch painting. The geometry of this new painting nearly hums with luminous bands of color.
In the catalogue essay for a Martin exhibition in Taiwan, Wang Pin-Hua writes: “with these frame-like lines, Martin creates a seemingly wider structure or multi-layered space by dividing and reconstructing the images, making the paintings extend far beyond the boundaries of the pictures.”
Curator Lisa Russell writes of his work: “Lloyd Martin’s reductive abstractions speak to the essential nature of painting and form…The interplay of elements is like echoes that resonate and leave one with a feeling of suspended time. Contemplative in nature, these eloquent paintings act as meditations, eliciting both visceral and cerebral responses.”
