One of the brightest talents in BritArt, curator of exhibition projects, professor and critic - these are only some of the creative incarnations of the British artist Martin Maloney. Maloney has a niche of his own in art and is never associated with the scandalous reputations of his starry colleagues such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and the Chapman brothers, who also participated in the notorious 'Sensation' exhibition.
Maloney's paintings collectively present a veritable "chronicle of the age", which will give future generations an idea of our urban lives in which ribald gay parties, shopping sprees with girlfriends, and quiet strolls in the park with your children and your dog co-exist. He is invariably focused on a person, be it a hysterical puny boy, an offspring of the metro-sexual culture, or a girl pretending to have been around while in fact looking as a parody of the omniscient Sarah Jessica Parker. Maloney himself defines his work as a hymn or an ode to simple people. He conducts, as it were, a sociological study of the surrounding world. His works, marked by an anecdotal quality verging on the absurd, accurately capture the very essence of our times. It is impossible to imagine these works appearing thirty or even twenty years ago. However, they are by no means just a superficial reflection of our times but rather a contemporary adaptation of the traditional genres: portrait and historical painting that is exemplified by such classical artists as Poussin, Watteau, and Vermeer.
Martin Maloney
Maloney's artistic individuality is best expressed in the portrait genre. His portraits are precise and ironic. In them he continues his reportage about the people who have made a mark on his life, and he does this with his typical organic naturalness and spontaneity, which critics have compared to "children's drawings". Maloney takes this as a compliment: "They mean to say by this: 'We are fascinated with your ability to infuse with life the most complex color combinations, which are more suited to abstract painting... We are delighted with your spontaneity and we are grateful to you for sharing with us your irrepressible enjoyment...' "
Indeed, you don't find portrait likeness in Maloney's portraits as the artist sets himself quite different tasks. In his portrait series he succeeds, with very laconic means, in achieving such utterly intimate effect, such depth in conveying human loneliness and suffering that it rightfully deserves to be placed in the same league with the highest specimens of this genre such as the Fayum portraits from the times of early Christianity and the icon images of the Orthodox martyrs.
Maloney was able to overcome the limits of figurativeness, imposed by the genre as such, and thus do without simple statements in picturing reality. The large monochrome sections with light-colored and bright contrast patches in his paintings are combined in some fanciful way with certain ornamental details running as a refrain through the whole canvas: for example, the images of little shirts and hats often blend with some landscape elements so that the entire composition becomes a single harmonious, vibrant and vivid whole.
His palette of light and poignantly pure paints, his bold color combinations, his free, uninhibited drawings and ornamental quality can be traced back to Matisse and seen as the latter's contemporary embodiment. Maloney is obviously intimately familiar with these traditions, which is corroborated by a long list of universities and institutes where he studied the theory of art and acquired practical skills. He began his studies at the University of Sussex and continued them at the famous St Martin School of Art and Design in London, then the New York School of Visual Arts, the London University (Goldsmith's College), and a number of other educational institutions.
At a certain stage in his career Maloney's skills, experience, and what we define by a broad term "school" receded to the level of the subconscious and ceased to dominate his consciousness. They became the foundation providing a support, which enabled him to rise to a higher level. At first glance, one may feel that the artist intentionally violates all rules and ignores the elementary laws of painting. But that is the vision of a dilettante. For the specialist every line and brush stroke, every color spot exhibit supreme professionalism and painting culture. They enable Maloney to retain this very fine balance between uninhibited wildness and minimalist sternness, a balance that only few artists in the course of art history managed to preserve, among them De Kooning, Baselitz, and Bacon.
Since 2000, Maloney has been experimenting with collage techniques apart from painting proper. His portraits and genre scenes, created with thousands of little pieces of vinyl, appear as vibrating and mysteriously shining surfaces bringing to mind the "crystalline" paintings of Vrubel and the famous mosaics of Ravenna.
Maloney's paintings of the late 1990s inspired quite controversial reactions from art critics. Some of them call his works "childishly over-sweet and banal" while others see him as "one of the more outstanding among young British artists" for his rare combination of sincerity and biting irony. But the fact remains that the public is indisputably interested in Maloney's art. The most famous international venues readily exhibit his work: the Royal Art Academy in London, the London National Gallery, the Saatchi Gallery, to name a few.
We have no doubts that the Moscow exhibition of Martin Maloney's portraits at the Gary Tatintsyan Gallery will be "taken to heart" and warmly received by the Russian public, which is known for its responsiveness towards talented manifestations of emotionality and sensuality.
Victoria Pukemova, director
Gary Tatintsyan Gallery
Martin Maloney
Until 30 October
Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Inc.
Iljinka street 3/8 bld.5
Moscow, Russia 109012
T: + 7 495 101 21 02
WWW.TATINTSIAN.COM
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