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CHRIS MARTIN 1,2,3...

CHRIS MARTIN
1,2,3...
1989-2011
Mixed media on canvas
77 by 68 in. 195.6 by 172.7 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN A Lioness Roars

CHRIS MARTIN
A Lioness Roars
2011
Oil and collage on canvas
52 by 42 in. 132.1 by 106.7 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN All Final Prophecies Come True

CHRIS MARTIN
All Final Prophecies Come True
2012
Oil and collage on canvas
45 by 37 in. 114.3 by 94 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Bus Maniac

CHRIS MARTIN
Bus Maniac
2008-11
Oil and collage on canvas
54 by 45 1/8 in. 137.2 by 114.6 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Glitter Painting

CHRIS MARTIN
Glitter Painting
2011
Oil and collage on canvas
58 by 49 in. 147.3 by 124.5 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Hero Lost

CHRIS MARTIN
Hero Lost
2011
Oil and collage on canvas
54 by 45 in. 137.2 by 114.3 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Raw Deal

CHRIS MARTIN
Raw Deal
2008-11
Oil and collage on canvas
54 by 45 in. 137.2 by 114.3 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Magic Carpet

CHRIS MARTIN
Magic Carpet
2009
Oil and collage on canvas
88 by 77 in. 223.5 by 195.6 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Goodbye 2011

CHRIS MARTIN
Goodbye 2011
2007-12
Oil and collage on canvas
33 by 26 1/8 in. 83.8 by 66.4 cm.

CHRIS MARTIN Reverend Al in Mourning

CHRIS MARTIN
Reverend Al in Mourning
1989-11
Oil and collage on canvas
124 by 82 in. 315 by 208.3 cm.

Press Release

Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to present its third solo show of Brooklyn painter Chris Martin. The exhibition will feature a group of new paintings, including several from a new series painted on newspaper grids.

Chris Martin was born in 1954 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His current solo exhibition "Staring into the Sun" at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, on view through January 15, is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue. Martin’s first solo museum show took place in 2011 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He has been featured in notable survey shows including “Abstract America” at the Saatchi Gallery in London, “Painting as Fact – Fact as Fiction” at de Pury and Luxembourg, Zurich, and “The Painted World” at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York. His work is in public collections including the Corcoran Gallery; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Denver Art Museum. He is represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

Martin is a firm believer in the beauty and surprise of chance operations, in knowing and not being sure of what he is doing at any given moment. His painting materials have included foam insulation, roof cement, glitter, pom-poms, felt, bread, photographs, and newspaper clippings, record albums, and “smoke on canvas,” while he has painted on vinyl, bath towels, aluminum foil, and burlap… His approach is at the same time serious, playful, and playfully serious. …

Martin’s vehicle is unquestionably painting, its history and those he identifies with as its key spiritual practitioners, and in quoting from them he is enfolding their visual language with his own, simultaneously conversing with these artists and being inside of his own head. In this sense, painting is equally a means for him to lose and find himself, over and over again.

Excerpted from “Chris Martin: In the Mind’s Eye” by Bob Nickas; Chris Martin: Staring at the Sun, published by the Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2011