British artist Jason Martin continues to evolve his voluptuous style of abstraction with this new series of darkly sensual, ruminative paintings. With emotional depth and the technical execution of his gestural approach, Martin brandishes a long-handled, heavy-headed brush that applies pigment in deeply scored troughs on aluminum panels. Crisp foundations and flowing folds of color refract ambient light with the textures of monochromatic, but nonetheless dynamic, surface. The artist pushes pure abstraction to the brink of photorealist illusion — his works suggest close-ups of hair or whirling eddies. Sweet , with its steely glint, and the obsidian-hued, roiling seas of Primavera are both dramatic and guileless odes to beauty and pleasure. His influences span from Blake and Turner to Polynesian deep-sea surfing that rises to the luminous surface.

-Shana Nys Dambrot