MARTINA NEHRLING: Through a Purple Patch, New Paintings June 5, 2008

MARTINA NEHRLING
Artist Reception: Friday, June 6th, 5:30 - 7:30pm

Martina Nehrling’s paintings are abstract compositions inspired by the simplicity of everyday life, translated through the complex filter of human thought and emotion. Martina states, “My recent work begins with observing the dappled sunlight of the Midwestern summer in a 21 foot panoramic painting titled, Through a Purple Patch, and develops into a study of the lulling experience of being present to the richly textured cacophony of daily life in a series of paintings titled, In Waves.”

“Grouped or tangled together, I use distinct brushstrokes for their directness, but rich color in order to engage and explore its imprecise language. I revel in color’s complexity, noticing how the eye tracks patterns of value and intensity and can be interrupted by particular relationships or a shift in scale. When I paint I am sounding out elements of my everyday life and I am captivated by the pulsation of disparate events, information, things… at once the beauty, the horror, the weight of it all. And so my work consists largely of compositions of accumulation. These seem to me one of the most legitimate kinds of pictures to make in our cultural landscape of abundant consumer goods, the privilege/burden of access to information, and the general order and disorder, calm and panic, chaos and hope.”

Martina Nehrling received her M.F.A. from the University of Chicago and her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “Through a Purple Patch” will be her fourth solo show with Zg Gallery and will run through July 12, 2008.

Official Website: http://www.zggallery.com/nehrling.htm