Is it a painting?
Is it a sculpture?
Is it a painted sculpture, a sculptural painting?
Donald Martiny, born in 1953 in Schenectady, New York, is a contemporary American artist currently based in Ivoryton, Essex, Connecticut.
Donald is an avid reader. In an interview, he has stated that he reads voraciously, and he and his wife dedicate hours every single day to studying art, art history, criticism, theory, and philosophy.
Perhaps art is about exploration and discussion too?
Donald is also an educator. He has lectured at universities and museums.
Can art be different in every single place?
Donald believes that his best ideas come from the work he is doing, and he works 7 days a week.
What do you observe in his artwork?
Isn’t it a pleasure to have these colorful dots on the wall? They always appear friendly, with nothing frightening or negative about them. It might be color in its most amazing form, where there is a freedom in it that a canvas with a frame can never deliver, never provide, ever. Instead it extends as far as Donald wants it to, to the north, the south, the east, and the west.
It’s a cheerful presence, a happy place, a mountain retreat, a beach paradise, a cozy reading nook, a secret garden, on the wall. It’s like the sun during a rainy day, perhaps even the rain or a rainbow, as rain is absent. These artworks are a dance with the people and things that surround them.
And you’ll love to be around them.
In fact I don’t really think of paint as paint, or color as color. I experience painting as pushing and moving pure sensation and feeling, e.g., sympathy, elation, agitation, ecstasy, sorrow, passion. More than an exploration of optics or beauty my use of color is a kind of spiritual quest.
Donald Martiny
Pictures of the artworks are taken at Diehl Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming.