Made for You and Me
Martin Webb

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 15th, 6-9pm
Closing Tea and Artist Talk: Sunday, July 21st, 3-6pm (talk starts at 4pm)Check out the Huffington Post preview HERE!

Webb’s recent work returns to thinking about the landscape, and to people making their places within it. It is about permanence versus impermanence, and about home and belonging.  He started making these paintings by writing out the lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” across all of the panels. Fragments of these can still be seen in places, though they serve more as a statement of intent than as a visual element. Having the lyrics there provided a sort of directional compass whilst making the paintings since the tone of the song articulated the tone I was aiming for in the paintings so well. Webb also wanted to give renewed importance to the abstract dimensions of the work, and so the accumulated layers of marks and color that the images float amongst are given equal weight in the final image.  The wooden posts that make up Grove were previously supports for freeway guardrails. The lifecycle of this old wood, from tree to freeway to abstract-forest, speaks simply about nature, human progress, and transformation.