Personal Structures ECC / 59th Venice Biennale: Venice, IT 2022

Madison Gallery will be exhibiting Donald Martiny at the 59th Venice Biennale, April 23 through November 2022 in partnership with the ECC European Cultural Centre at the Palazzo Bembo.

Art and spirituality have always been intimately connected, not only in the way they address the nature of our existence, but also because of their ability to register deep within us. Together they viscerally connect us to an inner feeling, spirit, or vital essence. This work by Donald Martiny strives for what Kandinsky described as the “vibration of the human soul.”

The painting titled Moment, is by far the most ambitious work Martiny has made to date. The painting is made of multiple elements, its creation demanding over one hundred liters of paint to produce. Working on the floor, the artist moves physically inside, around, and through the varied components of his compositions within the paint, pushing the viscus color across surfaces with his hands, arms, and body. The work is figurative in the sense that dynamic gestures relate to the human form in landscape. Shaped paintings have typically been made through an additive process, by applying paint to predetermined shapes. Martiny’s work challenges that notion. His gestures and completed compositions gain their power through a hybrid subtractive process that determines the final profile of the work. From a formal perspective, his process forces us to question established definitions which define our fundamental understanding of painting.

This installation is possible thanks to the efforts of curator Lorna York and Madison Gallery.

Donald Martiny, born in Schenectady, NY, 1953, currently lives and works in Ivoryton, CT. Studies include School of Visual Arts, The Art Students League of New York, New York University, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Martiny’s work can be found in the permanent collections of One World Trade Center, NY; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX; Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; FWMoA, Fort Wayne, IN; Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV; Lamborghini Museum, Bologna, Italy; Los Angeles International Airport (LAX); Frost Bank Tower, Fort Worth, TX; Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC. His work also numbers among several prestigious private collections including the Grahm Gund Family Foundation, Cambridge, MA.

Martiny’s work has been featured by Huffington Post, NPR, Philadelphia Inquirer, Architectural Digest Magazine, New American Paintings, Decor Magazine, Hong Kong Tatler, Woven Tale Press, Vogue Living Australia, and Whitehot Magazine.