March 30th, 2017 – May 12th, 2017
OPENING Thursday, March 30th from 6 p.m
Martin Reyna, “On painting”
In the studio, facing the artworks, I feel the permanence of a work that unfolds in space and time. Permanence which would be the sum of experiments, breaks and questionings.
Martin Reyna painted in ink and water. The fluidity constituting the very essence of the medium, the artist accepts that it can be freed, that it has its own existence. In a controlled gesture, he spreads the ink on the surface of the paper brushed with water in a horizontal rhythm. Martin Reyna speaks of “planned accident”. As if everything was suspended, in a space-time relationship, precariously balanced. A dialectic of tension, a complexity of relationship between the predictable and the unexpected. Thus the painting is dispersed in the vertical rhythm of the coulures, in the musicality of the pure and residual colors. The paper slowly saturates itself with colorful and poetic vibrations. Everything else is his walk in the open air, in Patagonia, in Normandy or in the forest of Ile de France. Martin Reyna is immersed in the landscape in a sensory and telluric relationship. As if painting became a challenge, the need to project one’s body into space, to return to painting. As if at this moment there was an “automatic reaction”, “a state of trance”. Jackson Pollock said, “When I’m in my painting I’m not aware of what I’m doing.” Thus Martin Reyna tries to bring out the painting that resists. In this “process”, he lets paint flow but does not lose contact with it. And in this chaos, Martin Reyna produces harmonious forms, expresses a certain idea of beauty.
Frédéric Mette, Director Art and Freedom Space
