NYAB Event - André Martinez-Reed "Orisha"

André Martinez-Reed "Orisha"

Henry Gregg Gallery

This event has ended.

André Martinez-Reed is a native Brooklynite. His philosophy and ideas coalesce in the exhibition, “Orisha: Capturing the Spirit”, which will be presented at Henry Gregg Gallery (www.henrygregggallery.com), 111 Front Street, Suite 226 in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood. It will showcase 9 oil paintings.

"I believe, to understand the workings of the Spirits roaming the Universe, one must first become aware of its existence. Once you do, it is only a matter of stepping through the door. It is impossible to look back as you explore your subtle surroundings and realize the wonder of all the infinite possibilities that exist around us. As an artist, you need not labor to capture the unexplained in a photograph or in a painting. With openness, it's presence makes itself known. Be open and keen, then your work will become a living entity."

What makes you stop unexpectedly before a face painted on canvas. You've seen countless faces in every day life, countless, the images forwarded as art, news and history. Yet there are times when an image seemingly similar to others beckons one to stop and look again.

It's a magnetism drawing one into a scene. One transcends rational observation for more penetrating, revealing characteristics that trigger recognition of a profound state of being exuded from the depths of the third and fourth dimensions. A face and its surroundings move, taking shapes, released from fixed patterns by no external manipulation. One comes face to face in communion with mysterious forces inhabiting the subject. Forces we know to exist in ourselves in dream states in wakened naked embrace of the spiritual within the soul of our existence, named and no- named. Language recedes giving way to feelings. A face emits an aura embracing our very own inner sanctums of self consciousness. Standing before the image one realizes sensations embedded in the psychic fabric of the mind; elements haunting and liberating, painful and ecstatic.

André Martinez Reed employs the mediums of paint to journey the viewer into the realm of the para-normal. I prefer to call his work: transport to the spirit world.

The exhibition, his sixth. A master jazz musician and gifted artisan, Martinez transposes his base mastery onto the visual plain via multiplicity of layered oils, inks, varnish, chalks, lead and Venetian plasters. Bold and free, after utilizing brushes, he shapes his subjects, tableau, by hand, fusing the material to the visceral. In this fashion the painter surrenders to the hypnotic. The results are captivating, enabling the viewer a portal into the micro cosmos of life forms, entry into the known, inexplicable caverns of that which is so often overlooked in one's self, in the surrounding universe.

This exhibition is designed to create an atmosphere of spiritual dialog between painter, subject and visitor. It can easily extend as a long journey, a metaphysical voyage. All one need do, as I have done, is look, look again.

[Image: André Martinez Reed "Biorhythm of the Spirits" (2010) oil on canvas, 48 x 60 in.]