On Exhibit at 210 Design House, September 6 - October 7, 2024
An invitational exhibition by Honsen Interiors at 210 Design House for the 9th annual River North Design District Gallery Walk
210 Illinois Street, Chicago
Opening reception: Septembmer 6, 5-8pm
On display through October 7, 2024
Contact artist for inquiries and purchase information
Martina Nehrling is an abstract artist who’s dynamic and richly textured paintings evoke kaleidoscopic worlds of pattern, color, shadow and form. She lives and works in Chicago.
Nehrling earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1993, and her Master of Fine Arts from The University of Chicago in 2001. She has been a Visiting Artist at Bradley University, Peoria, IL; University of Chicago; and Columbia College, Chicago, as well as an Instructor at SAIC and a Lecturer at Lake Forest College.
Writes Phillip Barcio, "Nehrling employs a highly developed, idiosyncratic painting method that involves methodical accumulations of abrupt, impasto brush marks. Using highly saturated colors, she projects a bold and vivid energy from her compositions. Each carefully placed mark grips on to its neighbor, forming hypnotic shapes and forms that seem to vibrate. Hard edges and geometric shapes make some of the work feel structured and architectonic, while sumptuously oozing trails of paint drip freely, betraying an embrace of the accident, and a respect for the human hand. In other approaches she indulges in the physicality of her materials pouring paint that develops into organic forms of pulsating concentric lines and complex color interference.
Nehrling is drawn to discordant forces, such as push versus pull; planning versus spontaneity; and plastic formalism versus passionate feeling. Despite the underlying sense of austerity she imbues into her paintings, Nehrling is constantly drawn to experimentation and the suspense of the unknown. She lists amongst her inspirations contemporaries such as Shinique Smith and Julie Mehretu—two artists also interested in the visual and psychological effects of accumulation and chaos. Yet, Nehrling also cites Minimalist artist Ellsworth Kelly as an influence, as well as “the emotive materiality” of installation artist Jim Hodges. What all of these elements have in common is a restless interplay between dichotomous forces. Out of apparently paradoxical discord, her paintings build and build until a tone of anxious, tentative harmony is achieved."
Nehrling has been featured twice in New American Paintings: 2011, Midwest, Issue #95, and 2002, Midwest, Issue #41. Her work has been exhibited extensively in museums and galleries across the United States and in Europe, including at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York; Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, Michigan; South Bend Regional Art Museum, South Bend, IN; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Center, Thessaloniki, Greece; Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria; and Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy
Her works are in numerous public and institutional collections, including those of the Federal Reserve Bank, Chicago, IL; the Imagery Estate of the Benziger Winery Family, Glen Ellen, CA; BMO Harris Bank, Chicago, IL; PNC Bank, Chicago, IL; and New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, among many others.
Nehrling’s work is represented by Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York and IdeelArt.com.