Younghee Choi Martin

The Bowery Gallery presents “Recent Paintings” by Younghee Choi Martin: a modern take on Aeschylus's Oresteia Trilogy. Through a massive play of shape and color, these highly worked surfaces address both the density and the fresh, lyric expressiveness of the ancient dramas to reveal a contemporary vision. There is a reductive, modernist integration of the figurative and landscape elements in these works. Through the continual development of the paint, the surface, the composition, and the texture, the narrative is never lost. It breathes through the layers to slowly release a pictorial structure and a lyric dimension.

In " Agamemnon’s Return" (45” x 54”), the weather, the light at the time of day and year, and the landscape forms are painterly manifestations of the energy of the conflicting sanctions of the gods which propel Clytaemestra onwards to her act of revenge. The paint itself drives the narrative that, as in the Aeschylus's works, finds its tragic force in the no-win situation for the protagonist and in the imposition of the wills of the Gods over humanity that both deforms and uplifts. It is that simultaneity that Martin's painting captures at the edge of abstraction and representation.

  In “Orestes’ Trial” (36” x 45”), the chorus of jurors surrounds Orestes to witness the verdict as Athene casts her final vote which will free him from the cycle of vengeance that plagued the house of Atreid for many generations. Simple markings create dark and light shapes moving across laterally, the forms are punctuated by sharp, short shapes defining foot here, boot there; gentle arcs suggest arms, elbows, or tree branches opening up to the glowing sky above. It is twilight signifying the end of the trilogy.

Since the late 1970’s, Younghee Choi Martin has lived and worked in Chelsea, where she was one of the earliest artists to establish a painting studio. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she has been awarded painting fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the NY CAPS program and her works have been exhibited in New York and throughout the United States, Korea, Japan, France, and Italy.  Over 80 of her paintings and drawings are in collections and museums in the United States, Korea, Japan, and India.

The exhibit runs from October 3 through October 28; there will be an opening reception on Thursday, October 5 from 5-8pm.