Eddie Martinez: Island I

Timothy Taylor Gallery is very pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Eddie Martinez. Coinciding with London’s annual Frieze Week, this will be the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery.

Martinez has gained international recognition for his extraordinary use of line and manipulation of colour, which he applies aggressively and in vividly contrasting combinations to his paintings and sculptures. His style draws from a deep understanding of painting’s histories, filtered through personal experience, popular culture and sport. Described as “indomitable” by Interview Magazine, Martinez has recently attracted attention for his “exceptional gifts as a painter and draftsman, which he exuberantly combines.” (Roberta Smith, New York Times)

In this new series of paintings, Martinez’s line experiments continue to evolve. Pushing the boundary of spontaneous gesture, Martinez performs brushstrokes on large-scale canvases with the same speed and dexterity as marker pen on paper. The resulting, dancing lines give form to blocks of colour in different densities, that move and merge from semi-figuration to abstraction and back again.

Island I, the exhibition’s title painting, refers to both the artist’s summer of production in his Long Island studio, and the Rastafari concept of ‘I and I’. Rastas replace the phrase ‘you and me’ with ‘I and I’, which expresses the belief that all people are equal, as well as to symbolise the union of the body and soul (eye and I). The eye could also be the artist’s signature; a recurring motif. Universality is represented in the groupings of ambiguous forms that always populate Martinez’s paintings, and the conflation of internal/external/foreground/background space. On the other hand there is an instinctive nature to the practice that is influenced not only by the art that Martinez studies and sees, but also the music he listens to as he works, conversations that take place during the production process, news events he reads about, and other ‘noise’.

Formally, the paintings in this exhibition were produced with gestures limited by a temporary physical handicap. A compression injury resulting from excessive tennis playing – that coincided with the production period of the exhibition – created a physical boundary that Martinez exploited as process. “Limited movements make fast, confident moves on the canvas,” he explains. When confronted with the canvases, Martinez’s performance becomes apparent. The artist’s reach is described by the gestures realised on canvas; self-portraiture in motion, but the self is not singular.

Martinez has had solo exhibitions at Peres Projects, Berlin; Half Gallery, New York; The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn; and ZieherSmith, New York. His work has been included in the group exhibitions Body Language, The Saatchi Gallery, London (2013–2014); New York Minute, Garage Centre For Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2011); Not Quite Open for Business, The Hole, New York (2010); Draw, Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico, Mexico City (2010); So Wrong, I’m Right, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2007); Mail Orders and Monsters, Deitch Projects, New York (2007); andPanic Room: Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens (2006).

Martinez was recently included in New York Close Up, Art 21’s documentary film series. He has been featured in Modern Painters, The New York Times, Interview Magazine, The New York Sun, The Boston Globe, ArtReview, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America.

Martinez lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.