"Let go of expectations" : Interview with Painter Martin Weinstein

  APRIL- MAY, OUTSIDE OVER INSIDE, MORNING OVER EVENING, (A BEAUTIFUL MORNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES), 2024, acrylic on multiple acrylic sheets, 28 x 31.5 x 3.5 inches, Courtesy of Lichtundfire

By MYLES FUCCI, April 17, 2025

Myles: Can you tell me about your journey as an artist? When did you first become interested in painting?

Martin: As early as I can remember, my father put a set of oil paints in front of me and encouraged me to start painting. He was an artist, raised in an environment that emphasized abstraction, and that naturally influenced me. He never quite 'made it' as an artist in the traditional sense, but he was incredibly knowledgeable and eventually earned a master’s in art education from Columbia and was a great teacher.

Because of him, I had a strong technical foundation from a young age. Interestingly, one of my earliest memories of really drawing all the time comes from something my grandfather gave me: a toy theater. It was essentially a box with a proscenium (the part of a theater stage in front of the curtain) and slots where you could insert different pieces of scenery. I spent hours creating backgrounds for it, and looking back, I see a clear connection between that and the layered, structured approach I take in my paintings now.

So, my path into painting was shaped by both direct artistic influence and these formative moments of creative play.

Myles: It seems as if your father, a painter himself, significantly influenced your artistic journey. Are there particular lessons from him, either technical or philosophical, that continue to shape your work today?

Martin: He was an abstract painter, but I don’t think that’s what he was truly meant to do. He had rigid ideas about what counted as 'art'—for example, he was an incredible photographer but dismissed photography as a real art form. That kind of self-denial shaped much of his career. 

There was also a deeper layer to his story. My father had PTSD from World War I, where he was an aerial reconnaissance photographer and was also one of the first to document the liberated concentration camps, which was an experience that haunted him. 

So, if there’s one thing I carry with me, it’s the lesson he never quite learned himself: to let go of expectations and be fully present in the work. 

Myles: While studying at Tyler in the transformative art scene of the ’70s. How did art school shape your approach to painting, and were there any artists or movements that left a lasting impact on you?

Martin: The teachers at Tyler back then, like Stanley Whitney, really shaped the environment. They had still life drawing classes, which felt like a continuation of my father’s philosophy: you had to learn to draw, but then you were expected to move beyond that into something else.

One thing that always sticks with me about Tyler is the feeling I had the day I arrived. And I think this is probably true for a lot of people when they first get to art school it’s that moment where, after years of high school and everything else, you finally land in a place where the only thing you’re supposed to do is the one thing you’ve always wanted to do. That’s a powerful shift. If anyone ever asks me whether they should go to art school, I always come back to this: my closest friends today are still the people I met there.

JANUARY, EVENINGS, INSIDE OVER OUTSIDE, 2022, acrylic on multiple acrylic sheets, 27 x 20.75 x 3 inches, Courtesy of Lichtundfire

Myles: Everyone I’ve spoken to, whether in BFA or MFA programs, describes those spaces as deeply formative. It’s not just about what you create; it’s about the energy and dedication of those around you, shaping the experience moving forward.

Martin: For me, at that time, I was looking at artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. My first paintings were big color field abstractions and stain paintings. There’s one piece in the most recent solo show I did at Lichtundfire,  a very big painting on raw canvas, where I started shifting toward figuration. It was still representational, but I was using the same staining techniques I had picked up from Frankenthaler and Louis.

Myles:  Given inspirations like Frankenthaler and Louis, your early work was deeply rooted in abstraction, where interiors and exteriors merged into dreamlike, almost fantastical spaces. What led you to shift toward a more representational style, particularly landscapes? Did the transition happen gradually, or was there a specific turning point?

Martin: Really, my earliest paintings were just abstract, not representational in any way. There was an implied space, like in Frankenthaler’s work, but nothing concrete.

Then, something shifted. I remember one painting where I had this blue passage and decided to put a cloud in it. Suddenly, the space opened up. That small decision changed everything, it was when abstraction and representation started merging in a way that felt right.

The funny thing is, I’ve always painted landscapes. Even at the height of my abstraction, I’d let myself paint them while traveling with watercolors, pastels, and plein air sketches, but I saw them as part of a travel diary, not my “real” work.

FRIBOURG IN GRAND STREET, 1986, acrylic on unprimed canvas, 66 x 54 inches, Courtesy of Lichtundfire

At some point, I realized I loved the challenge of depicting something in front of me. There’s an urgency to it; the light shifts, the wind moves, and you have to decide quickly. It short-circuits overthinking, making the layers happen naturally. The real challenge comes later when I bring those layers together. Colors underneath shift everything above.

So, it wasn’t about leaving abstraction behind. It was about embracing what I had been doing all along, following what felt natural. 

Myles: Your recent paintings, with their layered acrylic sheets, create a dynamic, almost cinematic sense of time and movement. How did this technique develop—was it a deliberate experiment, or did it evolve naturally? Given how your work captures shifting light, wind, and atmosphere, do you feel you’ve refined a method that plays with movement and time? When I view your acrylic pieces, it’s like watching a changing landscape through a window, as if a day is unfolding before me. Is that sense of shifting time something you intentionally strive for?

Martin: When I realized I was going to be a realist painter, I felt a responsibility to ask: What is reality? I started reading physics, trying to understand how we actually experience the world. Physicist Julian Barbour argues that reality is a physical construct that creates the illusion of time. That idea stuck with me and became something I wanted to explore through painting.

With the layered acrylic sheets, I’m trying to capture time as fluid—shifting depending on how and when you experience it. I’ve always been drawn to how light moves, how wind changes a scene in an instant. When painting outside, you have to decide quickly because the world won’t wait. That urgency carries into my layering process—each layer interacts with the one beneath it, much like memory, where different moments overlap and shape what comes next.

I love that you mentioned the window-like effect and how the paintings evoke different times of day. Depending on when and how you engage with them, they shift and take on new sensations. That’s part of what drew me to painting in Italy: how light transforms a place completely at sunrise or sunset. I wanted to bring that same sensibility into these works, where looking itself becomes part of the experience of time passing.

Myles: Do you see your paintings as a form of storytelling or memory, or are they more of an exploration of how we experience time?

Martin: Exactly. Time and all the emotions tied to it. I love painting flowers, but sometimes, as I’m painting them, they’re already wilting. There’s a poignancy in that, in witnessing something beautiful while knowing it’s fleeting. In that sense, the paintings become elegies. What we see is beautiful, but it’s also slipping away, just as we are. Yet, rather than focusing on loss, it’s about finding beauty in that impermanence. Each layer of the painting captures a moment that is both a reflection of the present and a quiet acknowledgment that it won’t last forever.

Myles: How do you approach painting light differently when working with transparent surfaces compared to a traditional canvas? Do you find yourself making different technical decisions?

Martin: I’ve always thought in layers, probably since childhood when I built miniature stage sets. I’d start with a base and build up, making things more complex as I went. Even in my abstract work, I kept changing the layers beneath as I added new ones. Working with plexiglass feels like a natural extension of that process.

One of the biggest misconceptions about my work is that the plexiglass is meant to create depth or an illusion of space. In reality, I use it to disrupt expectations. Close-up details often sit on the bottom layer, while distant elements are on top, reversing how we typically perceive depth. Sometimes, the interior is layered over the exterior, or vice versa. It’s about challenging assumptions of what we’re seeing.

Even in my earlier flat works, there was a strong sense of spatial illusion. For me, it’s never just been about depth but about how we experience space over time.

And then there’s light. That’s what gets me up in the morning to paint. I get why people see an illusory quality in my work at first, but the longer you spend with it, the more it becomes clear—it’s not about tricking the eye. It’s about revealing multiple perspectives at once and capturing how things shift depending on time, distance, and emotion.

Myles: Your work has a deep connection to nature, especially in your landscapes and floral pieces. Do you see yourself exploring urban landscapes, or do you feel drawn to continue with nature? I know your earlier work featured a range of settings, but do you anticipate a thematic shift, or will you follow where the work naturally leads?

STORMY AFTERNOONS, JULY, OUTSIDE UNDER INSIDE, 2023,  acrylic on multiple acrylic sheets, 28 x 31.5 x 3.5 inches, Courtesy of Lichtundfire 

Martin: I also paint portraits, layering them over time with different sitters. Recently, we moved to an apartment on the Upper West Side, which has been a more complex space to paint in. It overlooks the street, which I’ve enjoyed. Before that, we lived downtown in a dark but spacious loft for 40 years. But I paint wherever I am, hotel rooms, friends’ homes, anywhere I happen to be.

My connection to nature comes partly from my parents. They lived upstate, and I spent a lot of time painting there. I’ve always wanted to paint landscapes. Seeing Turner’s work at the Tate, I never separated painting the city from painting nature.

My past show at Lichtundfire feels cohesive, but it’s just one decade of my work. My wife, Tereza, has been a gardener her whole life. Before I met her, at Tyler School of Art in the 70s, I couldn’t tell one flower from another. She was a sculptor then and still is today. The flower paintings are really about her, about us. Even my connection to the landscape is tied to her. 

BREAKFAST, JANUARY, INSIDE OVER OUTSIDE, 2024, acrylic on multiple acrylic sheets, 27 x 20.75 x 3 inches, Courtesy of Lichtundfire

Myles: As the art world increasingly embraces digital media, immersive installations, and interdisciplinary approaches, do you see your work evolving in response to these shifts, or do you feel more grounded in the physical act of painting?

Martin: The physical act of creating is a meditation for me. I lose myself in it completely—time disappears, and everything else fades away. Someone asked if I would ever use AI in my work. I responded, 'Why should the computer have all the pleasure?' The process itself is part of the joy. It’s never just about the final product. It’s about how much I enjoy and need the act of making.

Myles: Martin, hearing about your process and the way you immerse yourself in art making is truly inspiring. It’s clear that for you, art is just as much about the act of creation as the final piece. Looking forward to seeing what’s next!

Martin: Thank you, Myles! I am participating in a group show at Lichtundfire that strongly resonates with my work titled Beyond Horizon, this April. Hope you have the chance to see it. 

www.martinweinstein.com