Dani Marti makes art that unflinchingly exposes the caprices – the impulses and vices – of humanity. – Lisa Slade 2014 (Dark Heart catalogue AGSA) GAGPROJECTS | Greenaway Art Gallery is pleased to present Slow Show, an exhibition of new works by Dani Marti. In the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery Marti will exhibit new sculptural wall pieces. The artist’s previous solo exhibition, RUN, RUN, RUN, was infused with high hues of colour, and sexuality by contrast Slow Show is presented to us in shades of black. The artist has had a long fascination with black – embedded in his Spanish heritage. Most recently, ‘Armour’ was his proposal for ‘Dark Heart’ at the Adelaide Biennial 2014, as a response to Goya’s black paintings; Marti states “ Black slows me down with each step I take towards it’-
The main body of work: PRELUDE#1 – #6, are a series of sculptural spheres made from customised corner cube reflectors in varying shades of black. Seductive dark voids percolating on the gallery’s walls. Circles– reflecting, refracting – with light and movement. Abstract convex dark dots constructed to delude the viewer. There is a sense of some breaking point with in the exhibition, a tittering game to a different dimension, where reality breaks down into unknown vistas without a horizon, and in constant change. Shields is another component of the exhibition, woven stainless steel, ropes and rubber, all in shades of black, protruding towards the centre the of the gallery, as portals of monochromatic black paintings fighting the limitations of their own dimension – quiet and embracing.
Dani Marti was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1963. He currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia and Glasgow, Scotland. Marti works across video, installation and public art. His unorthodox woven and filmic works turns to wider notions of portraiture and sexuality in modernism, minimalism, and geometric abstraction. Dani Marti studied fine art in New York and Sydney, gaining his Master of Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW (2000) and Master of Fine Arts at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland (2006). His work has been shown in major exhibitions including TOUCH: The portraiture of Dani Marti, a major solo retrospective at Newcastle Regional Art Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include the Adelaide Biennial (2014), ECONOMY, CCA Glasgow; Stills, Edinburgh (2013); Videonale-14, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2013); Let the Healing Begin, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2011); Social Documents: The Ethics of Encounter, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); Vocal Thoughts, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (2010) and Cinema X: I like to Watch, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2010). Marti’s work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; MUSAC, Leon, Spain; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane; ArtBank, Sydney; Chartwell Collection, Auckland; City Art Gallery, Auckland and the University of Wollongong, N.S.W. For further enquiries please contact the gallery at +61 8 8362 6354 or at gag@greenaway.com.au. All images are subject to copyright. Gallery approval must be granted prior to reproduction. – Please join the conversation with Greenaway Art Gallery | GAGPROJECTS on Twitter (@gagprojects), Facebook (Greenaway Art Gallery), Instagram (@gagprojects) via the hashtags #DaniMarti #SlowShow #GAGPROJECTS #GreenawayArtGallery