MARTIN C. HERBST, Take My Eyes
Opening Reception Saturday, November 29th, 2014 2PM – 6PM
Exhibition Runs: November 29, 2014– January 7, 2015
Christopher Cutts Gallery, 21 Morrow Avenue, Toronto, ON, 416 532 5566
Christopher Cutts Gallery is pleased to present Martin C. Herbst in his second solo exhibition.
Martin C. Herbst lives and works in Vienna, Austria. His current work continues to focus on an elaborate investigation of art historical themes, theories, and practices of classical portraiture.
His virtuosic, often, monumental paintings and objects appear paradoxically, at times cool, distant, and meditative as well as present and vivid. Herbst carefully avoids narration or any illustrative visual discourse, while convincingly exploiting his potential as a colourist.
In this new body of work, Herbst, looks intently at the work of Valesquez and in particular the portrait of his assistant, Juan de Pareja. In doing so, he attempts to see the visual world with the eyes of Valesquez whose approach to image making is steeped in the form of his subject. Like so many of his generation Valesquez constructed his image primarily with form having little concern for the multifaceted nuances of a colourist painter’s practice.
“Take My Eyes” literally refers to the gaze of the artist while transposing that onto the viewer. This allows for a new interpretation of the forever-changing aesthetic object.
