ART CITIES:London- Jason Martin

Jason Martin paints by covering largish surfaces of stainless steel, aluminum and plexiglass with a single colour of oil paint. Colour is his starting point, the background remains sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, through grooves made by the brushstroke. The light hides itself in the crevices, sculpted by the line of the brush.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Lisson Gallery Archive

Though the paintings’ creation is strongly based on the methodology of approach, Jason Martin seeks validation for his work from a more poetic instinct, allowing the viewer to form associations, directed by the form, texture and color of the work. The flow and varying intensity create a character indigenous to each piece, animating the tradition of monochrome and color field painting that stretches from Kasimir Malevich to Robert Ryman. Jason Martin in his solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in London features paintings and a series of silver cast works that represent a new departure for the artist who, for over 20 years, has pursued a deeply personal investigation into painting.  Executed mainly in palettes of white, grey and black, with a monochromatic approach further implied in the works’ titles through reference to formal names of paint, these works continue a long dialogue with Minimalism and seek to heighten the viewer’s sensitivity to subtle colour variation. A central movement of pigment horizontally traversing the image is common to all these works, forming a surface that is flanked above and below by negative space sculpted out of dense slabs of pigment, resembling terrains marked by topographical contours. In Martin’s series of silver cast works, paint is swapped in polished metal. In these works, sweeps of modeller’s paste are hand-sculpted and then plated in silver. Like the oil paintings, they embody the dialectical oppositions that occur between sculpture and painting. Proving his immense value as an artist, Jason Martin constantly succeeds in creating artworks by using the same simple materials. With naught but a single color and the movement inscribed in it, his works are bound to take you on an emotional journey. Every work is ultimately created from a mixture of chance and, as such, cannot be reproduced.

Info: Lisson Gallery, 27 Bell Street, London, Duration: 18/11/16-7/1/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.lissongallery.com