Tony Martin is an American painter and new media artist known for his groundbreaking light and viewer interactive sculptures and installations, and the paintings associated with those works. His six decade painting career includes expressionistic figural work and abstraction developed from his life and environs.
Tony Martin began painting in Chicago and San Francisco in the early 1960's. There were shows of his work, during that time, at the Boreas and Batman Galleries. His premise, always using oil paint, was and continues to be for the viewer to experience "looking in, not at". This is in regard to the composition perceptually, and also in terms of thought and feeling. The paintings have always been a melding of the figural and abstraction. Martin's exhibitions include The Scott Alan Gallery, The NY Studio School, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Academy Museum, Max Protetch Gallery, Wash. DC, The Painting Center- Catalogue entry by Dore Ashton, The Hillstrom Museum, St. Peter Mn.- Catalogue essay by Regina Cherry. See ~ www.tonymartinartist.net Martin has made extensive use of Light and electronic media as well. Often incorporating light compositions and visual projections into interactive installations and musical performances, he has worked with such composers as Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley and David Tudor. Some of Martin's works include: "Theater For Walkers, Talkers, Touchers", collaborations with David Tudor for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and a piece for the E.A.T. Pepsi Pavilion at Expo 70, in Osaka, Japan. Martin helped co-found The Painting Center in 1993. This center aims to provide exhibition space for both emerging and mature painters. His works using light began with multiprojector and pure light installations and performances in the mid-1960s in conjunction with the new music emerging from the San Francisco Tape Music Center.. In Light Pendulum ‘09, and other interactive installations, Martin distributes variable thematic content through switching systems and optics activated by the viewers. Principles of resonance and feedback are applied through photo and proximity electronics. These kinds of pieces have roots in the viewer-participation sculptures and installations such as The Well, You Me We, The Door, and Game Room, first exhibited at the Howard Wise Gallery in the late 60’s. He created the light system for the Experiments In Art & Technology Pavilion at Expo '70, Osaka, Japan. A NEA grant helped to develop the Vector Image Wall, a constantly evolving electronically produced drawing made of spatial and moving lines of light, shown at PS 1, NYC. A web work Galaxy, was commissioned by Electronic Arts Intermix in 2003. Artfair Miami-Basel, Mills Music Festival, and The Art Students League have hosted new works, including "Sound. Light. Migrations" a collaboration with Pauline Oliveros. Recent computer/video pieces apply direct hands-on drawing techniques in real time. Examples of these are "In the Wake Of Edges", "Light Marks Converse", and "Ear to the Ground". "Sunloom", an immersive video composition made from sunlight continues the sharing of his work with light through his unique visual language.
