August 1 – September 24, 2001
The work of two Nassau County artists with highly individual approaches to landscape are featured in this exhibition. Both are deeply committed to painting, for which they manage to find time despite the demands of other full-time occupations. Both have studied at the Art Students League, and both were included in the recent centennial juried art exhibition at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories.
Craig Marta, a resident of Sea Cliff, approaches landscape much as he does the figure, as sensuous textures and forms to be described with lush strokes of paint. He has studied art at the Brooklyn Museum School and the State University College at Buffalo, but considers his most meaningful training to have been with Jack Henderson at the Art Students League. He works in a time-consuming classical technique, with a fairly detailed underdrawing covered by layers of glazes. Marta works slowly, each painting taking from one to three months to complete. While he has worked extensively on Long Island, he has also spent time painting landscapes in New England and Florida, as well as in Italy. His contemplative landscapes are haunting, informed by a sense of stillness and quietude. Time seems to stand still in twilight subjects infused with a golden glow.
Work painted in the last year represents a new direction for Marta. While away on a painting trip he resolved to work more spontaneously, painting more directly and trying to complete a canvas in a single day. The fruits of the new approach are exciting, and the resulting paintings reflect a spontaneity and freedom seen in the work of the modernist painter Edwin Dickinson, whom Marta admires.
The artist has exhibited on Long Island at the Sea Cliff Public Library, the One Square Mile Gallery in Sea Cliff, and at Lizan-Tops Gallery, East Hampton. In New York City his work has been included in exhibitions at the Art Students League and the Salmagundi Club.