Buster Levi Gallery is pleased to present Cobalt, new works by Martee Levi at 121 Main Street in Cold Spring, New York. The exhibition will run from October 6 through October 29, 2017. The opening for the show will be on Friday October 6, 2017 from 6-8pm.
Martee Levi is an abstract artist. This is not something she makes excuses for. If there are any references to reality they are indirect and rarely display any relation to observation of the manmade or natural world. Her work is a hybrid of collage and painting. Each work is comprised of multiple pieces of canvas that are attached to a larger surface, normally stretched canvas, and painted. A main focus of her art has been compositional relationships. For the past few years and in some of her current work, Levi carefully balances larger and smaller geometric shapes creating movement and tension. This is embellished by the lines created in between the torn and cut canvas scraps that are irregular whether by distance between added canvases or as a result of their edges that are either uneven or soft. The resulting works are balanced, but active.
Much of the work in the current show abandons that idea and instead she has shifted her focus to rhythmic relationships. It could easily be argued that all compositional relationships are inherently rhythmic, but in her new work, Levi is forcing the issue. For one thing, she has simplified her use of color to two, blues and black. This alone helps to create a one/two beat in the work. In addition, the works are structured through stripes as opposed as to various sized shapes that each carries a certain amount of visual weight. Though sizes of shapes still differ in the current work, the contrast is not as great. Instead, they tilt and turn as they move through the stripes. When the works consist of stripes alone their widths vary in a way that create pulsating interactions. Though one might find parallels in nature, it is really jazz music that influences Levi’s decisions. The paintings recall the call and response of different instruments that is so common to jazz. These works move, they jump and they dance.
Buster Levi Gallery is open Friday through Sunday from 12-6 pm.
