“I’d like to be thought of as developing a new territory in painting, pushing the margins or the understanding of what painting can be, developing the language and the story of abstract painting or the story so far.”
—Jason Martin
Raw, magnetic, and pulsating with electric colour, Jason Martin’s Django (Alizarin violet) is a signature example of the artist’s celebrated practice. As an artist preoccupied with the legacy and history of painting, Martin’s work is defined by its constant state of invention and exploration. Executed with pure pigment on aluminium, the present work is evidence of his career-spanning investigation of colour, material, and form. Martin has moulded, scraped, and gouged his chosen material to create a densely worked and turbulent surface. Next applying layers of pure pigment to the still wet medium, Martin arrives at a highly saturated, almost glowing surface. The present work, with its deep violet palette, is an especially powerful example of this unique process.
Stepping in close, one encounters an extremely textured surface that recalls crashing waves or mountain peaks. As light bounces and shimmers across its impasto surface, the image changes - constantly evolving with the shifting of light and perspective. Moreover, Martin’s highly physical, three-dimensional surface blurs the lines between painting and sculpture. Critic Matthew Rudman suggests Martin is ‘transmuting the core gestures of painting into three-dimensional, unmistakably sculptural objects.’i In this way, Martin is not only pushing the boundaries of painting, but dissolving them entirely - upending the centuries-old binary between sculpture and painting.
‘‘When I started out I had an interest in bringing a cool approach to a rudimentary idea or “Minimalism” together with the live emotive and more heated posture of Expressionism.’’
—Jason Martin
In his quest to chart new territory in painting, Martin has looked to the past for inspiration. And while his work is in dialogue with a wide range of art historical figures, a handful of key influences stand out, including Robert Ryman, Willem de Kooning, and Yves Klein. Like Ryman, Martin uses heavy impasto to explore and expose the material qualities of paint. Also echoing Ryman is how Martin often restricts himself to a monochromatic minimalist style - limiting his aesthetic choices and instead leaving the artist to focus on fundamental elements such as colour, surface, texture, and process. Like Willem de Kooning, Martin’s laborious and physical painting process imbues his work with traces of his own personal expression. Lastly, his use of raw, heavily saturated pigments echoes the work of Yves Klein, who similarly explored the alchemical potential of colour. Across all these sources of inspiration, the common thread is one of experimentation and exploration; each of these artists has helped to propel painting forward. Expanding on this lineage, Martin represents the vanguard of his own generation of artists.
The present work exemplifies these important themes which have made Martin the subject of critical and institutional acclaim. A recent mid-career retrospective, ‘Jason Martin: Works 1997-2017’ at the Schauwerk Sindelfingen in Germany secured Martin’s enduring presence in the canon. His work is held in such prestigious institutional collections as the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, USA; Government Art Collection, UK; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria.
