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The exhibition room at start of ramp, showing a series of lightly painted works with various configurations of stripes. |
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Hard to see here, but the variations suggested film loops or alterations within an ongoing field or screen. |
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The stripes were created seemingly from graphite - lightly and perfectly applied. |
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Early work. The early paintings are disconcertingly horizontal, with a few extra beats of space than expected. |
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Another. Soft touch and paint full of breath. |
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The screening room, where we observe Martin turn a painting on its side and pull paint down like watercolor. |
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Detail of soft colors and touch |
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Grid drawing on a rough surface: the structure beneath Martin's compositions. |
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Practice: tethering line from one end to the other, meticulously with focus |
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Detail |
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Pleasurable, meditative methodologies: measure, then draw / augment |
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Natural linen, graphite, white - with enough air for breathing |
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In some ways not unlike Robert Ryman's White Paintings - but in the spirit of ink painting, despite emphasis on geometry |
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Imperfections beneath the linework appear on many of Martin's paintings - surprising and not unwelcome |
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This means a lot to me and expresses my feeling about painting as well. Imagery complicates the matter, but that in part is a question of one's moment. |
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Moving to paintings, softly and lightly kissed by the brush. |
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There is a faded quality to these that feels generous, insouciant even. |
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The dripped watercolor technique shown here. Transparency allows light to shine through. Graphite provides opacity as does grid. A beautiful balance of elements. |
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Not every idea is amazing. She tried and sometimes failed. |
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The simplicity, her ability to allow it, was the great gift. |
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An avid fan of her writing and thinking, I wanted to see this work without so much backstory; to see how it held up visually. |
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It did. |
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More successful in her vellum or tracing paper drawings was the restraint of pale red line bounded by graphite. |
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Another beauty. |
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Subtle, pulsing light |
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The bands like a rolling credit on a screen... |
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The blue painting on right, a knockout - color, proportion, touch just perfect. |
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Toward the end of her life she returns to earlier motifs, which I did not include here but are in the show. |
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Her last painting: one might argue incomplete. Still good to see. By this time, she's moving scale down from 6 to 5 feet widths. |