Discovering America at the JoAnne Artman Gallery

Drawing inspiration from cubism, fauvism, and minimalism—from the colors of Paul Gauguin and Milton Avery, to the shapes of sculptor Thomas Houseago, to the line of Egon Schile—Colombian-American fine artist America Martin paints in a style and voice all her own, redefining the term “melting pot.” Infused in her work are elements from a multitude of art movements, ideologies and philosophies, all synergistically working together to create dreamy, spirited, emotionally honest and charged depictions of lives being lived.

You can discover for yourself America Martin’s work, showing through the end of March,  in the JoAnne Artman Gallery’s current exhibition, “They’ve All Come to Look for America.” Named after a line from the Simon and Garfunkel classic “America,” a song about two companions journeying to discover for themselves the American dream, the paintings and drawings on display showcase a broad cross-section of Martin’s three favorite subjects: women and men, children, and nudes.

In Martin’s experience, the search for the American dream starts with the individual’s discovery of her own truth; it “means the opportunity to dream up a new and better future, for yourself, for your family, for your community—or for the country,” she says. “The American dream then includes the capacity for individuals to go out and realize those dreams.”

Martin first discovered her passion for art when she was 9 years old. “I bought a Vincent Van Gogh book for a quarter at a yard sale,” she recalls. “It was that moment when my world flipped right side round, and I saw exactly how I could and would be able to breathe in this life. It was through and with art. That is my truth.”

Her paintings capture moments of innocence, freedom, humility and passion revealed through eyes, lips, hands, bodies; movements revealed through the running and streaking of paint beneath bold lines (reminiscent of some indigenous art) on top of abstract geometric shapes, smears, and patterns of sometimes vibrant, sometimes subdued colors; the deliberate confusion of foreground and background as if to suggest a translucent quality to all materiality except some essence—some life-force illumined by Martin’s “less is more” restraint—at the core of the person in the painting.

“Minimalism is the Haiku of a subject,” says Martin. “It is a form broken down and distilled to its essence.”

In Aaand Safe, two baseball players are shown with their outlines intertwined, their essences enveloped in motion, capturing the inevitable chaotic clash of energy formed when a player narrowly slides into home. Physical exertion is often shown simply with colorful circles painted over knees, elbows, and shoulders, such as in Early Surf, which finds the excitement of surfers running towards the water early in the morning, anticipating the glassy surface, the rush of the break, and the weightlessness of the board in the water by depicting it in outline-form, clasped beneath the surfer’s arm, blending with the background.

The man behind the kit in Drummer just slammed the ride cymbal, which is shown pulsating perpendicular to the ground, ringing with a see-through halo around its edges, exaggerating its vibration. But you can tell in the drummer’s eyes where his focus lies, not in the blaring crash, but rather in the continuing groove—left hand on the hi-hat—repositioning the drum stick in his right hand, perhaps locking eyes with another musician, awaiting a musical cue from his bassist?

In Was Woo, a man woos a woman with a bouquet of flowers and his piano skills. The woman looks like she just got off her stool and started dancing. So focused on the sounds made from his fingers—the lines of his rapid fingers obscuring the keys—the man is depicted without eyes behind his glasses. And the piano bench supporting his weight is rendered nearly one with the floor, indicative of the man’s rapture with the “woo,” that feeling of musical floatation, forgetting you were ever sitting down in the first place.

Possibly the most enduring of Martin’s works are her paintings of children. Boy with Pepper Fish, Girl with Pepper Fish, Boy with Fish, Girl with Bright Face, Boy with Yellow Ear—all of these paintings depict simple joys, expressions, moments of triumph relative to age, maturity, capacity to express the authenticity of pre-adulthood innocence.

By contrast, LAX (also called Take Me Home), measuring more than 13 feet wide (the largest piece in the exhibit), portrays nine men standing shoulder to shoulder, all in black coats like matching limousine drivers, all staring straight ahead as if participating in a police lineup, holding signs with first names instead of anonymous strings of numbers. In their faces: sadness, madness, indifference, disappointment, impatience, as they await the arrival of whomever they’re driving home today. It’s easy to imagine one of them as a little boy, glowing in triumph while carrying a pepper fish, long before growing detached from the simple joys of youth, at least in this moment: nine men in charge of directions now occupied by an ironic haze of lostness. Except for maybe the guy waiting for Doug, the only driver not wearing a collared shirt is also the only one without a hint of dread on his face.

Rounding out the exhibition are Martin’s nudes, such as The Song of the Wind in the Grass, featured in the front window. A woman wearing only a hat lies on her stomach in the tall, wind-blown grass, her feet cozying up to each other, her large hands engaged with something the woman is thinking, or trying to recollect, or lost in a song, perhaps a song about the wind, a song she will only come to write because of this moment of liberation.

“Freedom in art is the liberty to create for yourself,” says Martin. “To be unabashed, always interested, in the wide field of your passion.”

Other nudes like Woman with Book, Bird Woman, Lucy II, and Woman with Orange Ladder exaggerate the human form into perplexing proportions, which, contrary to immediate expectations, illuminate truths about the women that would have perhaps otherwise been lost in the artists attempt at realism, some essence revealed in the contorted dimensions, the insinuations of self-gratification both of the body and of the spirit.

“The human form is my favorite landscape,” says Martin. “But the joy for me as an artist is catching the spirit of the person, for that is like catching truth in flight. It is that spirit that makes a piece of art sing.”

Martin believes that at its core such a spirit is really the imprint that the artist has on her work; that whatever truths you learn about a person in a painting is ultimately some truth about the artist herself. “When a piece of art hits you,” muses Martin, “it’s because it’s alive. It is holding a piece of the artist within it. You cannot look at art without feeling and learning something about who the artist is.”

“When you listen to a piece of music such as String Quartet No. 12 by Dvorak, you can’t help but feel who this person was and be moved, to the point of revelation. I believe that is the way that art must be created.”

Currently based in Los Angeles, Martin spends most of her time in her studio, in an ongoing dialogue between inspiration and canvas. Although she’s always looking forward to her next visit down here. “Laguna Beach seems to me like an oasis. I am always amazed at its lush and alive natural beauty. It is no wonder there is such a thriving community of artists nestled down by its blue waters.”

“They’ve All Come to Look for America” runs through March 31 at the JoAnne Artman Gallery, 326 N. Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach, 949-510-5481; joanneartmangallery.com. Open Wed.-Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and on First Thursdays Art Walk.