Aspiring to Solace

When one runs short of words, art comes to the rescue and talks to the soul...

In this Mediterranean view of the sea and rolling hills that might evoke Mother Earth's generous bosom, the benevolent full moon watches and protects, the night surrounds and cradles, and unlike the skinny trees of the monotonous Polders of the artist's childhood, whipped by the northern winds, this munificent pine rotunda with its broad circumference embraces and invites you hospitably to forget the asperities of this world.

The artist, in releasing her feelings and positive energy, adopts here a sense of emotional exchange that belongs to advertising, a visual dialogue that is easy for the viewer to see, to understand, and to experience. Her purposeful combination of colours, shapes, and patterns creates a powerful narrative that captures the imagination, bringing her alive to the viewer.

Technique:

Martine has adopted oil, applied in a smooth texture, as if to soften the rough edges of the human drama that constitutes her daily fare. Her technique consists in layering, on canvas, veils of home-made glazes of pigments and oil, in subtle variations of hues, one by one atop of each other.

The colour glazes may be gossamer-thin, but stratified in multiple coats they alternately evoke the infinite depth of the universe or the rich translucency of stained glass. Indeed, much in the manner of a stained glass window, light seems to infuse the color from behind. In effect, the bright light of the Cote d’Azur is IN the color and dominates her work, impacting the viewer's senses and emotions.