Scintillating Metamorphicals
Dryspell 
Wild Dreams
Transmutation
Beach Tracks 
Fortress
Sublimation 
Broken Lilies
By Tom Wachunas
Excerpts
from artist statement: "My central theme considers science and patterns
in nature as backdrops… Physical processes such as melting, solution,
crystallization, fluidity, outer space nebulae, microscopic images... my paintings often reflect not what I see but
what I think, how I feel, and what music is playing in my studio or in my head.
My art is an abstract reflection of what is within me, what is around me, and
the art of how my mind deals with the external influences of both the real and
the imagined.” – Joe Martino
“After a certain high level of technical
skill is achieved science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity,
and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.” -
Albert Einstein
“Art and science create a balance to
material life and enlarge the world of living experience. Art leads to a more
profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of
feeling.” - Hans Hofmann
EXHIBIT: MIXED MEDIA MAGIC: ARTISTIC ALCHEMY – work by Joe Martino / at
Strauss Studios Upstairs Gallery, THROUGH MARCH 14, 2025 / 236 Walnut Avenue
NE, downtown Canton, Ohio / Mon.-Fri. 10-5, Sat. 12-5
https://john-strauss-furniture.myshopify.com/collections/joe-martino
A
remarkably prolific mixed-media artist, Joe Martino is an enchanter, a conjuror.
His elegantly framed wall pieces are evocative, mesmerizing transformations of
diverse materials and processes. He doesn’t paint flat, static “pictures” so
much as he raises amorphous, intricate geometries into quasi-sculptural structures.
They’re at once tactile vessels and transportive conduits, holding and channeling
ephemeral layers of coalesced realities, earthborn and celestial.
Molded, rubbed, carved or scraped into those
realities is a tangible wealth of accumulated visual data that exudes the
sensation of being on an adventurous expedition into a mindscape of pure
intuition. The artist’s and my own. On this adventure, my personal act of looking
infected me with a serious case of synesthesia. Spontaneous multisensory
activation.
Martino’s
numinous architextures are transcendent topographies replete with vigorous flows
of color harmonies, variable rhythmic cadences that pulse and dance, and even mystical
melodies.
Eye
keep hearing a magnificent symphony orchestra soaring.
