See “Tumbleweed Painting & Other Recent Work” at WNC

“Tumbleweed Painting & Other Recent Work,” a collection of paintings from Western Nevada College instructor Gil Martin, will hang in the Virgil Getto Hall Gallery Monday, Sept. 10, through Friday, Sept. 21. This collection of work is intended to be non-objective, and the shapes, surfaces, and linear elements are meant to communicate balance, tension, and resolve, through the visual language of painting.

“I eschew complete control over the medium, letting the paint pool and run across the uneven surfaces of the ground,” Martin said. “I attempt to put colors in arrangements that accentuate the beauty of the material.”

Martin uses colors that come directly from the earth. He gathers the pigments himself, generally from road-cuts, on his travels throughout the United States. He works outside on the ground, using an aqueous paint.

“To make paint, I mix the natural pigments with a starch paste made from wheat or corn flour,” he added. “Natural processes – the flow of a river, the decomposition of a leaf, the shape and movement of a tumbleweed rolling across the road – inspire me to paint.”

Press Release: August 21, 2007

"Tumbleweed" by Gil Martin.