Chris Martin

Sideshow
2005-09-01

With a passel of appearances in prestigious recent shows, both Uptown and in Chelsea, Chris Martin returns to his home-turf with this selection of fresh work. Martin’s images are as bold and simplified as Tantric diagrams, and they resonate with a new found coloristic panache. The massive scale of the paintings (about 12 x 15 feet) seems intended to seduce the viewers to enter an all encompassing visual field, transporting them into a psychically charged awareness which pays homage not only to Martin’s Buddhist inspirations but to American mystic eccentrics like Forrest Bess, Myron Stout and Alfred Jensen. As if to reinforce the artist’s unrestrainable vision, a painting will be installed on a building across the street, billboard style.

—James Kalm