Donald Martiny

Donald Martiny studied from 1977 to 1980 at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. From 1980 to 1983 he was a student at the Art Students League of New York. At the same time he attended courses on art at the New York University. From 2007 to 2009 he continued his education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.[1] He lives and works in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In 2015 Martiny received a scholarship as an Artist in Residence of the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts in New Berlin, New York State[2] and was represented in the annual exhibition of the artists there. Also in 2015, Martiny was invited to produce two large works for the One World Trade Center, which are permanently exhibited there. Martiny has lectured at Cornell University and at the Ackland Art Museum. There, in 2016, he conducted a public discussion on the painter Hans Hoffmann in the context of an exhibition of his works.[3]

In an interview, Martiny has been called a gestural abstractionist.[4] This term refers to a method of how the painter applies color to an object: The idea was that the artist would physically act out his inner impulses, and that something of his emotion or state of mind would be read by the viewer in the resulting paint marks. (Tate Galleries)[5] This technique is also known as Action painting.

Martiny describes his work as follows: My paintings are actual authentic gestures. These brushstrokes are very much me and I want to be present in the works as honestly and authentically as I can be. They are a record of my physicality at a specific point in time.[4]

Martiny does not paint on canvases or rectangular backgrounds. His works show the immediately frozen brushstroke, as Martiny designed it in his movements. He had to experiment for years with the composition of the paint, which should be liquid enough to reproduce the brush stroke well and at the same time be so durable in a dry state that the work can be mounted on the wall without breaking. The finished work is reinforced by an aluminium plate cut to the exact dimensions of the brush stroke as a base. The paintings then look like a relief on the wall.

The paint Martiny uses consists of a mixture of water-based polymers enriched with pigments. Sometimes he stretches this mixture with so-called microbubbles, which ensure that the paint looks light.[4]

In contrast to the working method of other artists of Action painting, Martinys works are not only spontaneous. He first creates a sketch in miniature and, if he likes it, he produces the work in ever larger dimensions. He always works on the floor because this situation gives him the greatest freedom in his brushstrokes. He makes his own brushes, and sometimes he also takes his hands to express all his current emotions in the work. Martiny on his works: Brushstrokes are dances trapped in paintings.[4]

• 2013: Video of the Biennale Non-Objective, Le Pont-de-Claix, France (2013): 10′ 14″[6]
• 2015: Video about the exhibition Donald Martiny: Freeing the Gesture, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, United States (Mai 2014): 09′ 26″[7]
• 2015: Video about the exhibition State of the Art – Art of the State, Cameron Art Museum, United States (2015): 05′ 18″[8]
• 2015: Video about Donald Martinys work in the One World Trade Center, New York City, United States (2015): 05′ 14″[9]
• 2015: Video about the exhibition Donald Martiny: Gestures, Galerie Madison, La Jolla, United States (2015): 01′ 58″ [10]
• 2019: Video about the exhibition Donald Martiny: Fu in principio Materia Divina ("In the beginning there was Divine Material"), Casa del Mantegna, Mantua, Italy (2019): 02′ 54″[11]

• 2015: A Chapel Hill Artist Paints His Way Into The World Trade Center[12]

• Art Collection of the One World Trade Center, New York City, United States[13]
• Grahm Gund Family Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• Patrick Duffy, Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, USA[14]
• Stadt Le Pont-de-Claix, Frankreich
• Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States[15]
• Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, United States[16]

• 2014: Donald Martiny: New Paintings,[17] George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, United States
• 2014: Donald Martiny: Freeing the Gesture,[18] Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, United States
• 2015: Donald Martiny: Gestures,[19] Madison Gallery, La Jolla, United States
• 2016: Donald Martiny: Moving Paint,[20] Gallery Urbane, Dallas, United States
• 2016: Donald Martiny Paintings. Freeing the Gesture,[21] Alden B Dow Museum of Art and Science, Midland, Michigan, United States
• 2016: Donald Martiny[22] Galleri Urbane Dallas, United States
• 2017: Donald Martiny: Pittura a Macchia,[23] Madison Gallery, La Jolla, United States
• 2017: Donald Martiny New Works: The River Series,[24][25] Diehl Gallery, Jackson, United States
• 2017: Donald Martiny,[26] Artea Gallery, Milan, Italy
• 2017: Overtones – Undercurrents,[27] Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill, USA
• 2018: Donald Martiny – Brushstrokes – dances captured in paintings,[28] Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, Germany
• 2018: Donald Martiny: Epistrophy,[29] Galleri Urbane, Dallas, Texas, United States
• 2019: Donald Martiny: Divine Material,[30] Museum Casa del Mantegna, Mantua, Italy
• 2019: Donald Martiny: Open,[31] Dimmitt Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States

• 2013: Fundaments,[32] Galerie Concret, Paris, France
• 2013: Pourquoi pas – Why not. 2e Biennale internationale d’art non objectif, Le Pont de Claix, France
• 2014: 25 Years Conny Dietzschold Galerie,[33] Conny Dietzschold Galerie, Cologne, Germany (with a. o. Daniele Buetti, Kuno Gonschior, Heiner Thiel)
• 2014: 7 x Farbe pur. Monochrome Malerei, Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, Germany
• 2014: China Art Projects,[34] Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, China
• 2015: State of the Art – Art of the State[35] Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, United States
• 2015: Interact: Deconstructing Spectatorship: East Wing Biennial,[36] The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England (with a. o. Liu Bolin, Sebastian Brajkovic, Matthew Buckingham, Pablo Delgado, Petra Feriancova, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dieter Jung, Julie Mehretu, Katie Paterson, Bridget Riley, Regina Silveira, Marc Quinn, Shezad Dawood)
• 2015: Is it...Monochrome, Colorfield, or Object?,[37] Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, United States
• 2015: Pino Pinelli, Donald Martiny, Bram Bogart,[38] ArteA Gallery, Milan, Italy (with Pino Pinelli, Bram Bogart)
• 2016: Made in Paint: Golden. Artworks of the 2015 artists in residence,[39] Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts, New Berlin, United States
• 2016: Plastische Malerei: Pino Pinelli, Donald Martiny und Matthias Lutzeyer,[40] Klaus Braun Galerie, Stuttgart, Germany
• 2016: 60 Americans,[41] MakeShift Museum, Los Angeles, United States
• 2016: It’s all about the hue,[42][43] GreenHill Center for NC Art, Greensboro, United States
• 2016: All Things Great and Small,[44] Falmouth Art Museum, Falmouth, Cornwall, Cornwall, England (with a. o. David Hepher, Diane Ibbotson, John Salt, Tim Shaw)
• 2017: Remember when this wasn’t quite how I remembered it?,[45] Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, United States (with a. o. Mark Khaisman, Osvaldo Romberg, Hadieh Shafie, Jackie Tileston)
• 2017: The Enduring Reasons Why: Celebrating 25,[46][47] Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, United States
• 2017: Dialectical Praxis – Celia Johnson & Donald Martiny,[48][49] Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, United States
• 2017: State of the Art – Art of the State,[50] Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, United States
• 2018: Roter Faden – Schwarz,[51] Galerie Klaus Braun, Stuttgart, Germany
• 2018/2019: Emergence,[52] Dimmitt Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas
• 2018/2019: Art Window: Donald Martiny,[53] North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
• 2019: Simply Red,[54] Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, Texas

• 2015: Two works in the One World Trade Center: Lenape (named after the Indian Tribe Lenape which used to populate large parts of today's states New York and New Jersey) and Unami (named after the now extinct language of Lenapes).[55][56]

• ArteA Gallery, ed. (2016). Bram Bogart, Pino Pinelli, Donald Martiny (in English and Italian). Milan: ArteA Gallery.
• Carter Ratcliff, Charles A. Shepard III, Deborah Swallow, Lawrence J. Wheeler (2016). Donald Martiny: Monumental Gestures: Paintings form 2013–2016. Chapel Hill: Donald Martiny. ISBN 978-0692351277.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Donald Martiny at artfacts.net
• Donald Martiny at kunstaspekte.de
• Webseite Donald Martiny
• "Donald Martiny Talks About His Paintings With Noah Becker". whitehotmagazine.com. March 2019. Retrieved March 23, 2019.