Chris Martin

Chris Martin is at the end of his rope. The top of the ladder. There's nowhere to go. So why not play?

If Pollock was melted Picasso, Chris Martin can be melted de Kooning with shellacked Wonder Bread (really!) sorted by a hairbrush. Most of his work in the current show is abstract and contains added collage elements to make the paintings three dimensional.

I was reminded of Joan Mitchell's roll-up-your sleeves ethic to get every last drop out of a surface. Her canvases always look like she's worked hard to make her surfaces shimmer. But those were the days of abstract-expressionism religiousness.

These days, when abstract paintings are just abstract paintings, Martin's look like he's worked hard to create something novel, with loud clashing colors, bulbous islands of cushion affixed, lines of gesture dragged through a dump of paint. His real spiritual forbearer is Stuart Davis' jazz-inspired abstractions of commercial art and American signage.

Chris Martin has said that he's "turning up the volume" of painting. It's hard not to listen.

At Mitchell-Innes & Nash until March 1.