MARTINE EMDUR
NEW PAINTINGS
MARTINE EMDUR NEW PAINTINGS 15 June – 3 July 2016
What could possess more elemental duality than water? It is the source of life and the prime force of nature, it is both sanctuary and menacing enigma. As a perpetual muse and technical challenge it is a subject that painter Martine Emdur can fathom in work after work. And with this she has created a unique continuum where the nuances of light, shadow, scale and protean buoyant movement become more palpable with each brush stroke and each new composition. Just as clouds disintegrate and re-form, water is in a continual state of renewal and restless movement. Into this realm Emdur plunges bodies and creates a subterranean theatre where silence replaces time and ambiguity is a constant. Living by the sea, painting the sea and submerging her models into the skin of the water she has endless patience for the gradations and the shifting mutability of her element: “With each painting I notice another detail letting me understand and further capture the subtleties.” Her work is not just (sea)scape. It is also portraiture, a highly original extension of the figurative into the abstract. The sea being the ultimate abstract field: a seamless realm of light and colour. It is also a treasury of metaphors and wishes. For this painter a body in water alone can signify “surrender, fluidity, calm” and the meeting of two bodies (which increasingly the new work explores). Anatomy in the picture conveys something more: union, erotic fantasy, tension. This work is highly sense based. It can make you shiver or melt or feel a very human vulnerability in the face of shadows, depths and uncharted perimeters. The sea embraces and engulfs and Emdur seeks to engage the eye in the same dynamic.
Cover: Martine Emdur, Down Time, 2016, oil on linen, 183 x 244cm
She works in light and shadow but the physical reality of the ocean is always in the foreground. Step into the image and you are immediately in over your head, suspended, weightless, sometimes spellbound. "The scale is key, I want people to stand in front of my paintings and get the feeling of being immersed. And I think about the temperature of the water even more than the light. The temperature is everything in my paintings. I love a warm-blooded body in a cool body of water. I love the light and warmth from the sun streaming through the top of the picture where the body has pierced the surface and then all the shadows give the sensation of the cold, more mysterious water below." Unlike David Hockney’s static tiled swimming pools, broken by bodies and glittering in the sun. Or unlike Claude Monet’s scumbled melting water lily ponds, the water in a Martine Emdur painting is not just a formal convention for exploring space in a painting or a palette of cool colours. It is, quite simply, a place that you can feel. And the range of sensations shifts from figure to figure, molten sunbeam to icy undercurrent. In the new works there is a tension between freedom and fear “between the joy of floating and the darkness and mystery of the water” but there is also a universal beauty: calming, ancient, returning in on itself in the endless tug of the tide. Anna Johnson, August 2013
Opposite: Martine Emdur, Underwater Love III, 2016, oil on linen, 167 x 228cm
From left: Martine Emdur, Down Time, 2016, oil on linen, 20 x 20cm; Martine Emdur, Sway, 2016, oil on linen, 20 x 20cm
Martine Emdur, Chill, 2016, oil on linen, 170 x 300cm
Martine Emdur, Salute to the Sun, 2016, oil on linen, 183 x 198cm
Martine Emdur, Sunning II, 2016, oil on linen, 20 x 20cm; Martine Emdur, Covert, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Untitled, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Feet First, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Opal, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Waist Down, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Underwater Love, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Rock Dwellers, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Untitled, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Coast, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Untitled, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Siren, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Martine Emdur, Haven, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 50cm
Installation view at Olsen Irwin
Installation view at Olsen Irwin
MARTINE EMDUR Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 Twenty Fourteen, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2011 Wattle: Australian Contemporary Art, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong 2011 Salon des Refuses, SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney 2011 Inaugural Exhibition, Reis Gallery, Singapore 2011 Christmas Exhibition, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2011 Linton and Kay, Perth 2010 Hong Kong Art Fair, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong 2005 Portia Geach, Finalist, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney 2004 Christmas Show, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2003 Archibald Finalist, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney 2003 Ned Kelly Framed, Charity Auction, SH Ervin Gallery National Trust Centre 2002 The Kings School Painting Prize 2002 Flesh, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2001 Archibald, Art Gallery of New South Wales, touring 2001 Waverly Art Prize 2001 Kings School Art Prize 2001 Global 4th Anniversary Exhibition, Global Gallery, Sydney 2000 Melbourne International Art Fair, Art House Gallery 2000 Kings School Art Prize 2000 SCEGGS Redlands Art Prize 2000 Salon de Refuses 2000 Mosman Art Prize 2000 Waverly Art Prize 1999 Kings School Art Prize 1999 Waverly Art Prize 1999 Mosman Art Prize 1999 Tap Gallery, Sydney 1999 Art House Gallery, Sydney
2016 New Paintings, Olsen Irwin, Sydney 2016 Here and There, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2015 New Paintings, Olsen Irwin, Sydney 2014 New Paintings, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2013 New Works, Olsen Irwin, Sydney 2012 New Paintings, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2012 New Paintings, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney 2010 Paintings, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney 2010 Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong 2010 New Works, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2009 New Paintings, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney 2009 Linton and Kay, Perth 2008 Deep, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne 2008 New Works, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2007 Art House Gallery, Melbourne Art Fair, Victoria 2006 Limelight, Schubert Contemporary, Main Beach 2006 Art House Gallery, Sydney 2005 New Works, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2004 Art House Gallery, Melbourne Art Fair, Victoria 2003 New Works, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2002 New Works, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2001 Sapphire, Art House Gallery, Sydney 2000 Descent, Art House Gallery, Sydney 1999 Coasting Art House Gallery, Sydney 1998 Sanctum Art House Gallery, Sydney 1997 Global Gallery, Paddington, Sydney 1997 Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Bondi, Sydney
1998 Art House Gallery, Sydney 1998 Art House Gallery, Sydney 1998 Red Global Gallery, Sydney 1998 Landscapes Art House Gallery, Sydney 1998 Flow, Global Gallery, Sydney 1997 Kevin Brennan, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney AWARDS & PRIZES 2002 Winner, Kings School Art Prize and Peoples Choice Award 2001 Local Subject Prize, Waverly Prize 2001 Highly Commended, Waverly Prize 2001 People’s Choice, Kings Prize 2000 SCEGGS Redlands Peoples Choice Award 2000 Highly Commended, Waverly Prize 1999 People’s Choice, Waverly Prize 1999 Local Subject Prize, Waverly Prize 1999 People’s Choice, Kings Prize 1999 2nd Peoples Choice Awards - Tap Gallery SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2009 Sydney Morning Herald, Out Of The Blue, Elissa Blake, 21st of February 2008 Herald Sun, The Deep Thinker, Colin Vickery, 11th of July 2004 Domain, 26 February 2003 Wentworth Courier, November 5 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum November 8-9, Up Close, Yvette Alcott 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald, Exhibitions, November 8-9, Lenny Ann Low 2003 Wentworth Courier, November 5 2002 Sun Herald, Metro, December 8 2002 SMH, The weeks Best, Ed. Richard Jinman December. 6-12
2002 Art Monthly Australia, Artnotes NSW, Courtney Kidd, Dec. #156 2002 The Daily Telegraph, What’s on, Elizabeth’s Best, Elizabeth Fortescue Dec. 21 2002 The Weekend Australian, Painters make work of art, Sophie Toomey Sep 7-8 2001 S Magazine, On the waterfront, Maria Lum, July 2001 2001 Artist Magazine, Class Act – 2001 Archibald Prize Finalists, Terri Dodd 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald, Domain, Melissa Penfold 31 August 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald, Metro, Courtenay Kidd, 8 September 2000 The Sun Herald, September 2000 The Wentworth Courier 23 August 2000 The Daily Telegraph 30 August page 95 2000 The Sunday Telegraph, Richard Zachariah, 3 September 2000 The Big Issue, Image Makers, Chris Boyd 4- 19 September 2000 2000 Australian Coastal Style, Dive In, September/ October 2000 1999 Sydney Morning Herald, Sebastian Smee, November 1999 1999 Sydney Morning Herald, Metro, Richard Jinman, November 1999 1998 The Sunday Telegraph, Melissa Hoyer, 25th October 1998 1998 The Sun Herald, What’s on this week, Jane Hampson, 25th October 1998 Sydney Morning Herald, Domain, Melissa Walker Smith October 22nd 1998 Wentworth Courier, Janise Beaumont 1998 Australian Artist Magazine, October 1998 TELEVISION 2003 Burkes Backyard 2000 Arts Diary ABC 1998 ABC “Snapshots”, Art House Gallery, Sydney 1998 Fox Lifestyle Program
MARTINE EMDUR NEW PAINTINGS 15 June – 3 July 2016 View full exhibition and price list here.
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