Andrew Frost,
Undiscovered Artists,
Australian Art Collector, Issue 16, April-June 2001 . Front cover and pages 74-75
It’s not often that you walk into a bar and see a good artwork hanging on the wall. It’s usually miss rather than hit for artworks brought in to spruce up an expensive eatery. But in th upstairs bar of the upscale Cicada, in Sydney’s Potts Point, there’s an amazing object that looks like a white monochrome. Although the work has the size and impact o a big spot-lit painting, the pieces is actually weaving stretched across a sturdy frame. Constructed from tightly woven but chunky white nautical ropes, the work is highly tactile yet pristine. The urge to touch it is discouraged by the seer precision of its construction. With tiny flecks of black and blue stitching running through the ropes, your eyes dance over the piece taking in the detail of the three-dimensional surface.
The artist is Dani Marti. Born in 1963 in Barcelona and resident in Australia since 1988, Marti participated in a group show in late 1999 at the now defunct, artist-run space, Gallery 19. His works were made from the commonly seen, brilliant orange, roadside netting that is use in street and highway construction. Each square in the grid was intersected by 1 cm-wide plastic piping. In an otherwise lackluster show, the piece was an absolute stand out.
Marti’s gathering reputation as an artist to watch was cemented by a successful solo outing at Rubyayre Gallery in 2000, an exhibition which showcased pieces that were both minimalist and maximalist expressions of elegant formalism. Although a “chunky” approach to fibre would be familiar to anyone who was unfortunate enough to live the ‘craft boom’ of the 1970’s, his works are finely considered experiments in abstractions, owing little to the eye-watering experiments of 30 years ago. While referencing minimalism they explode the very qualities fo the construction to observable levels. His pieces are conceptual objects that call into question the very nature of the materials that are used. It is as if the has taken a microscope to a canvas and blown it up to macrocosmic scales creating reflexive and arrestingly attractive objects.
Although not attached to a commercial gallery, Marti’s work has attracted admirers among architects and interior designers. He has completed a number of highly placed commissions such as the work in Cicada and a forthcoming piece for a financial institution. A full slate of exhibitions are set to attract further notice. In the next few months Marti is taking on an amazing calendar of shows that includes Sydney venues such as First Draft, Artspace, Gallery 4A, Room 35, Casula Powerhouse and, in Melbourne, Span Gallery. Although Marti’s work already sells as high as $5,000, his prices are set to rise even further after this grueling schedule. Now is the time to seek out his work.