Dani Marti, Closer, Arc One Gallery
A former Sydney artist now based in Glasgow, Spaniard Dani Marti’s woven panels appear to have increased in depth and complexity, with a greater range of materials being incorporated into his mesh frameworks. Those familiarwith his industrial cording woven into precise grids, often monochrome, will be impressed with the variety of these 12 reliefs (shown with two DVD works of big close-ups of portrait subjects, of excruciating slowness and shadowiness ),
The handsome triptych Shadow after Shadow (portrait of the artist’s mother at the age of 73) is mostly black (polyester/nylon rope0 but incorporates small stainless steel balls and knitting yarn. Also black is the sparking Monster, in which secondhand beaded necklaces and Spanish rosary beads “collected between 200 and 2003” are not so much woven as tangled into te tubular mesh used for mussel farming (see installation shot of The Pleasure Chest, a similarly constructed work).
Marti construct a skin to get beneath your skin. The texture of materials was never so provocative, the act of binding always at the front of your mind. It’s tough work .
Penny Webb