Country:
Categories:
"With a career of six decades behind him, Marx has become known for his emotionally nuanced figurative work, where bodies and faces take on distortions in his efforts to explore what it means to be human in an inhuman age. Whether conceptual or abstract, Greene's paintings focus on the materiality of the medium, with an emphasis on texture, surface, and depth. They depict imagined spaces inspired by the concepts of crossroads, portals, time, and memory." (Exhibition preview highlight by Rebecca Rafferty - Rochester City Newspaper)
Robert Ernst Marx
"The people I draw, paint and sculpt personify the human condition. They are also the people we see around us, every day.
I have favorite themes. I am troubled by: the arrogance of power, the exclusivity of the institutions of church and state, the abuse of and by both spouse and child, and our own and others’ personal fears and insecurities.
We are also to some degree trapped by the conventions we have chosen to impose upon ourselves.
While painful to express, these themes desperately need expression, and I have done it by creating my own visual language while building upon the inventions of my artistic ancestors. For example, Picasso was the first to paint a dismembered human body to convey a sense of futility. I also use symbols: mannequins, masks, and dangling limbs on puppet strings, as my visual “shorthand” for the controlling forces which frustrate us all.
I work not only for myself, but also to make a connection with you. I do so as elegantly as I can and with an ambiguity that invites you to join your interpretation with my own.
If I am successful, my people will now make eye contact with you…and our dialogue will begin."
John Greene
John Greene spent 30 years on Wall Street, but always maintained a studio in the West Village area of New York City where he would go after the market closed and use whatever energy he had left to paint large, intense canvases. Working alone and in a cramped space, he began working in a manner which has stayed with him all these years. Greene creates images from within his own head rather than from models or from still life or from actual landscapes. Creating his own reality, painting imagined rather than real landscapes, recreating long-forgotten images and vistas.
For Greene, painting is about paint: the color, the texture, the joy of putting it on and scraping it off. The results are best served by keen and repeated viewing as he introduces elements that are hidden or apparent, that will encourage “reading” the paintings many times and constantly discovering something new.
Above all, the process of making a painting is what drives John Greene as an artist. “The Process of making a painting reveals parts of myself that might be a mystery even to me. I love the smells, textures, endless decisions and accidents that come from the paint, the wax, and any other materials, that seem to be consistent with my purpose, my aesthetic. The making of art is a sensual endeavor, and all the better if it speaks to the viewer – to me that is the greatest barometer of success."
Main Street Arts is a commercial art gallery specializing in showcasing contemporary art and fine craft from emerging and established Upstate New York artists. Located in the historic, picturesque village
of Clifton Springs, NY, the 3,600-square-foot space has two floors offering exhibitions, an artist residency program, and workshops.
