Donald Martiny

The works of Donald Martiny are full of visceral movement and vibrant color, but it would be too easy to reduce these forms to a discussion of color and flow. These enlarged brush-like strokes, formed from polymer and saturated pigment, are visual poems. They are the painterly equivalent of a verbal haiku, deceptively lean, but on reflection as complex as breath. The simplified structure allows a viewer to look deeper. The swaths of undulating paint, dotted with streaks of hidden color and seemingly random trace gesture, draw us closer, enticing us with their history. The sensual, almost liquid quality of the forms woos us, like the touch of someone’s hand on bare skin, light but electric, the movement fleeting but the sensation enduring - The touch simple in form but resonant in understanding. That sensation is rare in this world of detachment. As these paintings attest "the simplest gesture is the most profound." 

Courtesy of Sponder Gallery