Martin Reyna

About

Martín Reyna is an Argentinian-born abstract painter living in Paris, France. His gestural abstract paintings delight the eye and activate the mind with their luminous color relationships and deft explorations of perspective and space. Awards and Fellowships Reyna is the winner of the Chandon Prize, Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Jean-François Millet Prize of Paintings, Valognes, France, the Nuevo Mundo Foundation Prize, and the Gunther Prize of Paintings, among others. He recently completed a Ballinglen Arts Foundation residency in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland, and was awarded a Fellowship at the Fundación Antorchas, Buenos Aires. Technique Reyna works with ink, acrylics, and oils on canvas or paper. One of his signature techniques is to dilute his mediums so the colors will dissipate and intermingle in uncontrolled ways. When using ink on paper, a small bit of water is introduced to the surface, creating profound effects as the color seems to vibrate outward, expanding harmoniously into space. Reyna is interested in the balance between freedom and planning. His method is to meticulously plan the linear and spatial properties of his compositions, while leaving room to instigate moments within his process when the forces of nature take over, leading the work in directions he cannot foresee. Inspiration Two different, but complementary objectives inspire Reyna as he works. The first, as described above, concerns his technical method of pitting the forces of chaos against those of control, by selectively moistening his surfaces so the mediums will react in spontaneous and unpredictable ways. ... The second concerns compositional harmony. Reyna is interested in exploring how the negative, or unpainted, areas of the surface interact with those areas that are activated by line, color, and form. He has described his compositions as “Landscapes of Space.” Unlike landscapes that portray the natural world, these abstract landscapes reveal new perspectives on how color, fo