"Before Painting Became Slave To Representation.The Artist Communicated With Their Gods And Their Spirits By The Act Of Imagination. By The Invocation Of Magic!"
The magic of André’s visual work is it’s interweaving of abstraction and representation. They function as separate cogs in a well-oiled engine. It’s the way African-derived polyrhythm functions. A rumba, samba, funk or swing shuffle is built on an ensemble of instruments. In every rhythm each instrument or instrument section is assigned a specific repetitive part unique to that section.The part itself won’t get you sweating up the dance floor. It’s when the parts roll together that the groove catches fire.
Polar Levine
Homage to Gustave Courbet I | Oil on canvas, 60" 72"
"The Job Of The Artist Is Always To Deepen The Mystery." (Francis Bacon)
“ I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors,
and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice.” Walt Whitman
This quote by Walt Whitman seems to encapsulate the dimensionality of the creative spirit of my friend, Andre Martinez Reed.
My first encounter with Andre Martinez Reed was at the Henry Gregg Gallery, which he owned and curated. The power and diversity of works on exhibit were quick to spark a lively interchange. It was immediately apparent that the works exhibited were, in a sense, reflections of Andre’s keen, discerning, and often spiritual sensibility.
As my relationship with Andre deepened, I realized he was truly an artist accomplished in several diverse art forms. His rich background as a composer, and drummer, working with legendary Cecil Taylor and other jazz greats, coalesced with his abstraction in visual art.
As a photographer, in addition to exhibiting in his gallery, I was fortunate enough to photograph a selection from the treasure trove of Andre’s paintings.
The colors flow, the forms lay rhythmically on the canvas and dance almost as a jazz drum beats-one art form flowing in syncopation into another, often surrendering to the spirit beneath the paint, waiting to appear...
This collection of images, coming together in a book, will provide sustaining victuals for a searching artistic soul.
Anthony Almeida, Photographer
Chairman of Photography Initiatives, Salmagundi Club, New York, NY.
"Using the camera to illustrate the presence of the para normal, the spiritual, Martinez shot seemingly mundane, unremarkable scenes ofhouse furnishings stirring in normal light using no more than a simple lens and film. The images caught are surreal, suggesting, isolating, a spirit presence.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."
Moe Seager
The Intrusion
The Vanished Minds
A Ritual for Symphony
The Various Shades of Grey
The Dark Side Of The City
In The Shadows
The Forgotten Sides
A Gathering of Angels
Lazarus Rising
André Martinez Reed © 4/25/2020
Tinkerbell - Oil on Canvas
"When he paints, he’s infusing all of his wonders, agonies, joys, sufferings and sheerwisdom into luminous
treasures with meaning, and most of the time, multiple meanings. Art is not taught, it is innate. It is bestowed,
a gift from your Creator where you embark on a spiritual romance birthing a new creation from the ether."
Tanya Monique Vazquez
Portal V — The Seasons | Oil On Canvas, 60"x 60"
Breaking the Code Two—Presence | Oil on canvas, 60" 60"
Pages From New Upcoming Book - The Vigorous Sprit
Reflections
Be reflections of my mercy, be deliverers of grace to one another.
Make use of time for thought and contemplation of a knowledge that's never-ending.
Dip yourselves in the illumination of truth.
Simplify the complications of thought patterns and feel the quiet, steady beat of the heart.
Inhale the oxygen of pureness and exhale the chaos that stirs in one's core.
Feel the echoes of the wind, and the cleansing of the rain.
As you gaze at the stars, feel my presence.
It surmounts around you and abounds above and below you.
Lauren Martinez ©5/15/2020
"The Most Beautiful Thing We Can Experience Is The Mysterious.
It Is the Source Of All True Art And Science."
Albert Einstein