Cameron Martin: Parts to Whole

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to present Parts to Whole, an exhibition of new work by Cameron Martin. This is Martin’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, on view April 14 through May 27, 2022.

In his work, Martin explores modes of information transmission and presentation, articulating the potential for abstraction to carry and convey meaning parallel to what is assumed in figuration. Drawing upon a growing lexicon of “almost-signs,” his paintings and drawings engage the viewer’s recognition of familiar cultural forms and their associations without explicitly defining their signification. This sense of incomplete readability opens a productively ambiguous space of representation within his work, mirroring its prevalence in the larger world. Patterns, logos, and shapes reminiscent of those found in everyday life are contextualized within a new visual terrain across the canvas, simultaneously inhabiting spatial formations evocative of current information delivery systems and developing distinct ontological relationships to one another. 

The works in this exhibition embody three compositional strategies, each of which considers the interpellative effects of figure-ground, subject-to-frame and metonymic relationships. In Harbinger (2021), the central “brushed” shape maintains a clear position as the frontal figure within the painting, set against a patterned ground and contained on all sides by a solid purple border. Even as the gray background and painted white forms extend beyond the interior frame, the subject-to-background dynamic is maintained, as it is in other works such as Assembly (2022) and Capture (2022). Alternately, in paintings such as Sunblind (2021) and Deluge (2021), sinuous tracks of color weave their way across the painting’s foreground, as brush-stroked figures—in echo of Harbinger—swirl behind them, creating the illusion of animated space. Emerging directly from the edge of the canvas, they imply a continuation that exists beyond the edges of the painting; a flow of visual material rendered partly inaccessible, from which the viewer can only infer form and presence. 

The third approach is found in Martin’s new group of Scale Reticulation marker drawings (all 2022), which operate as potential fragments of expansive fields or matrices. Building upon his previous marker works, in which the smaller work was cut down from a larger drawing, these new images are produced within an increased, predetermined size. Adjusting the length and width of his marker strokes to accommodate the extended proportions, the works produce an enhanced illusory effect, conjuring transmuting units in a potentially endless network. Despite the set dimensions, there is no sense of frame, of beginning or end; lines of color are staggered at the edges of the paper, each negotiating their own moment of entering the pictorial plane and the viewer’s field of vision. Collectively, one watches the wavering, shimmering rows of marker continuously cross the thresholds of the drawing in an infinite scroll of information.