NEW YORK: Eugene J. Martin

Eugene J. Martin, Chef and the Kid, 1994, Acrylic on canvas, 31 x 49 inches. Image courtesy of the Estate of Eugene James Martin.

Satirical Abstraction: Works by Eugene J. Martin

July 21 – September 30, 2013 (by appointment)

Gallery event: September 12, 2013, 6-8 PM  

ASC PROJECTS AT GALLERY 304

526 West 26^th Street, Room 304

New York, NY

ASC Projects at Gallery 304 is pleased to present Satirical Abstraction: Works by Eugene J. Martin, the first New York showing of the long-neglected African American artist. Eugene J. Martin (1938-2005) was a pioneering figure in the 1960s and 1970s in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to geometric, constructed and biomorphic abstraction, as well as a model for today’s loose border between abstraction and representation. The solo exhibit focuses on acrylic paintings on canvas and paper from the 1990s that juxtapose soft-edged and free-flowing organic forms with hard-edged geometric structures. Martin called many of his works straddling abstraction and representation "satirical abstracts,” a leitmotif evident in graphite drawings from 1978, whimsical pen and ink drawings from  1986-1988 and a 1974-1997 mixed media heterochronic collage.

Martin was born in Washington, DC, where he attended the Corcoran School of Art from 1960 to 1963. In 1996 he moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, where he lived and created art until his death. Recent museum exhibitions include solo shows in 2012 at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, LA; the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, MS; and the New Orleans African American Museum in New Orleans, LA,  in  2011.  Works by Eugene Martin, Ed Clark and John T. Scott were included in the significant three-person Beyond Black exhibition at the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, LA, in 2011.

Martin’s art is found in many public and private collections worldwide. These include the permanent collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, NY; the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art in Savannah, GA; the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE; the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, NE; the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, LA; the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, LA; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA; the Alexandria Museum of Art in Alexandria, LA; the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, MS; the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, MS; the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, AL; the Stowitts Museum & Library in Pacific Grove, CA; and the Munich Museum of Modern Art.

Gallery hours by appointment only

Contact Ayn S. Choi at skc404@gmail.com