JoAnne Artman Gallery is pleased to present COLORITO, an exhibition of new works by America Martin. A term usually applied to 16th-century Venetian painting where color is employed in a dominant manner, colorito, or ‘coloring’ was deemed fundamental to conceiving painted images charged with the look of life. America Martin’s modern interpretation includes not only judicious color application, but the vitality and vigor of the world around her as she continues her unmistakable aesthetic sensibility.

“On Saturday, December 3rd, Wally Workman Gallery will open their 10th solo show with renowned Los Angeles-based painter America Martin. The artist is inspired by form and figure as depicted by the Impressionists and Modernists of the early 20th century. A concentration on line and flat color reduces her subjects to their simplest forms and yet challenges our ideas of perception. Her confidence in mark making and gesture is clearly that of a dedicated and prolific artist. Represented across the country and internationally collected, Martin continues to impress audiences with her exciting work.

Through radical forms and an unmistakable aesthetic sensibility, Martin experiments with line weight and function as a tool for two dimensional representation of three dimensionality. Creating a new balance between solidity, mass, and suggestion, thick lines are filled with the bubbling energy of thin, long scrapes throughout their length – adding both intensity and depth.

Martin’s desire to capture the essence of humanity and nature is central to her engaging work. To underscore how important it is, she refers to herself as a painting anthropologist. Nevertheless, she deals with the same problems that have obsessed painters throughout time—arresting movement, exploring the expressive potential of human form, and arranging bodies in space in novel ways.

Wally Workman Gallery presents America Martin: "Under the Sky”, the ninth show with renowned Los Angeles-based painter America Martin. Martin is inspired by form and figure as depicted by the Impressionists and Modernists of the early 20th century.

Emphasizing narration and the tales that emerge through gesture and contour, America Martin’s compositions always conjure a captivating story.

America’s embrace of the influence of art history acknowledges a wide range of artistic influence, including that of Matisse, Picasso, Leger and Chagall, but in emotional reach and painterly vocabulary are very much rooted in contemporary life. One cannot help but recognize the way she rapidly sets herself apart from her peers and propels beauty, vulnerability, refinement and poetry into our world with astonishing precision and force.

JoAnne Artman Gallery is pleased to present, Connecting the Dots, an exhibition featuring new works by America Martin. Referencing Paul Klee’s statement that, “A line is a dot that went for a walk,” the title serves as a fitting descriptor of Martin’s adept and exuberant use of line. Employing smooth, bold curves as well as hard, geometric strokes, she adheres to the most fundamental aspect of drawing - the line - to tell a story, connecting compositional elements and personal narratives throughout her practice.

Using smooth, bold curves as well as hard, geometric strokes, America Martin adheres to the most fundamental aspect of drawing…

We look back at excerpts from our conversations that highlight Martin’s studio practice, process, and the continuing inspiration for her most recent body of work.

“The idea of being present and really looking at a vista - a tree, a rock even, and seeing it change throughout a day was amazing,” she said about her plein air work around Chama last July.