Whitehot Magazine

Martin Weinstein at Cross Contemporary Art Projects

 Martin Weinstein, Hydrangeas, One Day Under Another, 2021, acrylics on multiple acrylic panels, 28 x 31.5 x 3.5 in
 

By JONATHAN GOODMAN August 29, 2024

Martin Weinstein | Looking Through Times, is an exhibition of recent artworks presented by Cross Contemporary Art Projects located at 80 White Street in the Tribeca district of New York City. For decades, Weinstein has been deeply involved in the New York City downtown art scene. He and his wife, Tereza Liszka, founded the non-profit art center Art In General which existed until recently on Walker Street, while maintaining a residence and studio on nearby White Street. As a painter, Martin Weinstein has been in a unique position to understand the need for artists to show in a city where exhibition space can be hard to come by and the Art in General organization was dedicated to showing those artists whose work was not easily seen by the public.

Now it is Weinstein’s turn to be exhibited in the neighborhood where he has long maintained his studio and residence. Although grounded in the Plein Air tradition, Weinstein’s painting style has a twist. Each artwork consists of three transparent panels, which have a partial image worked out by the artist. The panels in an individual work are painted at different times of day, often different years and from varying viewpoints. The panels are then encased in a clear acrylic box, creating a painting that appears as a seamless, multi-dimensional yet ever-shifting image. The process results in a difference, though: the suggestion of depth in the paintings is not imaginary but actual, given that each work consists of the several acrylic planes placed one behind each other. The shifting planes manifest the layers that are often blended together and obscured by traditional painting, allowing the play of ambient light to interact with the acrylic dimensions.

The Hudson Valley is home to Martin Weinstein’s main studio where his landscapes are inspired by the intricate gardens maintained by his wife Tereza. This mutual collaboration over the years revisits flowers, trees, clouds, and seasonal vistas bordered by the ever-present Hudson River. A prolific painter, Weinstein cycles through the seasons giving a lyrical report on the elements that make up our experience of the world outdoors; sometimes incorporating buildings and sometimes simply the melodies of the landscape, including sky, clouds, hills, plants, water - and the light that plays off of them and animate their forms. (Weinstein also pays attention to historical sites, as his views of Venice testify.)

This means that Weinstein, despite his long stay in New York City’s urban life, is actively recording a vision that is closer to the countryside. We have had strong painters from the city do this before; think of John Marin, the remarkable New York City modernist painter, who did work on visions of the landscape while living in the city. The landscape, once a major feature of painting efforts, is far from dominant now as a theme.

In Looking Through Times, a comprehensive exhibition of over fifty artworks, the elusive texture of memory is captured by his elegant stratagem as he creates depth from multiple layers and a cohesive image out of diverse times and viewpoints. Hydrangeas, One Day Under Another (2021), is a fine example of Weinstein’s strengths. It is a study of white hydrangea blossoms, with under layers of other spring flowers. Surrounding these densities of hue are dark green thicknesses of shrubbery. The study captures Weinstein’s audience with its intense focus; the billowy edges of the flowers echoed and carried through in the profile of the clouds above is one of many spatial fractals found in Weinstein’s technique, which heightens this work and others by a closely detailed vision of nature.

 Martin Weinstein, Apartment in Lucca, Sunny Afternoon Inside Over Rainy Afternoon Outside (2022), Acrylics over multiple acrylic panels, 14 x 11.5 x 2.5 in

Also in the exhibition are Italian studies. One work, called Apartment in Lucca, Sunny Afternoon Inside Over Rainy Afternoon Outside (2022), depicts a beautiful palazzo apartment interior. The center consists of a white door, fully opened to reveal a bedroom. To the right of the door is a large window, which sheds light into the interior space. However, the layer below reveals the street outside, giving the painting a peculiar visual paradox. The light, coming from the window described and from a bedroom window, infuses the space with sunlight while the wet streets beyond emerge into the room from behind the suffused radiance. Everything stands out within the dimmed luminosity of indirect light.

 Martin Weinstein, Venice, Skies, One Showery Afternoon Over Another, 2022, acrylics on multiple acrylic panels, 11 x 13.5 x 2.5 in

In the small paintings of Venice, the artist takes an aerial view, overlooking the lagoon. Clouds and sky merge from above with well-known Venice buildings. In Venice, Skies, One Showery Afternoon Over Another (2022), the outlook is taken from the sea several hundred meters from Piazza San Marco. Almost the entire painting is concerned with grayish, slate blue tonalities, both above and below the middle distance, which is occupied by buildings. Cumulus clouds are played against flat sheets of cirrus clouds; the sea has highlights of white foam. Among the buildings the white domed roof of the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute stands out creating the shadow of a memory of the scene.

There is an epic quality to Weinstein’s view of things in this work; sky and sea emanate the rough energies of nature, while the buildings offer us the example of culture, in this case the great culture of Italian architecture. We needn’t be scholars to appreciate the beauty of Weinstein’s interpretation, but our appreciation is inevitably enhanced by his tacit praise of history and the immortality of beauty. Weinstein’s use of acrylic layers has made his energetic response to beauty transposed into the 21st century;  his vision is as experienced as it is seamless. Over time, Weinstein’s work presents evidence of the artist’s identification with the elegance of his vision. If we recognize the range of his visual intelligence in this show, we find that Weinstein has been deeply taken with the beauty of appearances—the sky, the sea, buildings, interiors, flowers. This attraction to the striking visual evidence of the world around us has made us more aware of our environment in Weinstein’s work—as I assume he wishes. WM            

         

Jonathan Goodman

Jonathan Goodman is a writer in New York who has written for Artcritical, Artery and the Brooklyn Rail among other publications. 

 

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