Author Description

Chris Martin often dedicates his large-format compositions to esteemed and admired artist colleagues from the worlds of painting and music. Their names are written coarsely on the surface of the image right next to stuck-on coins, vinyl records, banana skins and newspaper articles.Despite the rough, utterly profane image surfaces, Martin's work picks up on various traditions of spiritual abstraction, for which New York, where Martin has lived since 1975, is a melting pot. This is the first comprehensive publication on his work, which breaks from all the laws of purity of Colour Field painting and monochrome painting and makes reference to Native American folklore, religious mysticism and anthroposophical symbols, as it does to the 'Spiritual Landscapes' of North American romanticism that are little known in Europe.This catalogue contains four essays and the transcription of an extensive conversation between Elodie Evers and the artist.Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 21 October 2011 – 15 January 2012.English and German text.