Martina Nehrling

Statement & Resume

"Through a Purple Patch," acrylic on canvas, 3 panels, 48" x 252"

Artist's Statement:
My recent work begins with observations of the dappled sunlight of the Midwestern summer in a 21 foot panoramic painting titled, Through a Purple Patch, and arrives at a study of the movement of light and breeze and color in my own back yard in, Garden Drunk.  Much of the work completed between these two pieces, both responding to the natural environment but painted a year apart, continues the development of my effort to be present to the richly textured cacophony of daily life.  I am sounding out elements of my everyday when I paint and I am captivated by the pulsation of such disparate events, information, ideas and things.  In our cultural landscape of abundant consumer goods and the privilege/burden of access to information I create compositions of accumulation about that beautiful and horrific, relentless clash; at once the weight and the flimsiness of daily life, both the inspiring and the mundane.

Grouped or tangled together, I use multiple distinct brushstrokes for their graphic directness, but rich color in order to engage and explore its imprecise language.  I am utterly seduced by color’s formal complexity while I revel in its emotive slipperiness and enjoy mining its controversial decorativeness.  The inextricability of these aspects, unique to color, continually spurs my engagement.  Additionally, color is significant to the marked auditory aspect of my painting process.  To develop the tenor, tonality and rhythm of a piece I listen to its interrelation, often combining both its fluid and percussive qualities.  I use particular color relationships to interrupt or punctuate the tracking of patterns of value and intensity, creating moments of concord and discord, enjoying syncopation and visual rhyming.  With color that refuses to be ignored in patterns akin to lists, sentences, or notes my paintings often operate as lyrical musing, lush celebration, high pitched lament, or raucous rebellion