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The Paintings of Martin Timko
by Jude Schwendenwien
Martin Timko’s paintings examine autobiographical content within the genre of abstraction. Early impressions of the industrialized eastern Ohio landscape – a surreal-looking environment scarred by pollution – have provided a source of ongoing visual inspiration for the artist. Through an uncommon fusion of subjectivity and stylistic developments from the history of abstract art, Timko creates a new pictorial forum in which others can share in these perceptual experiences.
Timko uses color, form, and composition to convey his unique perspective of the Appalachian foothills, which have been dramatically altered by years of strip-mining (a process of digging deep into the earth through the removal of the top layer of land). The look of dissected rock formations, rising like towering walls above a ground covered in the black residue of coal, match the strong forms of Abstract Expressionist paintings that Timko admired during his formative years. Forsaking the documentary realism of traditional landscape painting, Timko translates the powers that exist within the landscape’s geology into full-scale abstractions.
Timko’s earlier forays into abstraction, however, do feature occasional nods to conventional landscape through the presence of a horizon line, which implies a boundary between imaginary sky and land. The strong horizontality of Mark Rothko’s abstractions, which also utilize this illusory horizon line, has provided Timko with an understanding of structure as a compositional tool. He now develops large areas of color, utilizing a palette that is purposely jarring to the eye. This effect parallels some of the shock of seeing orange water and yellow skies in eastern Ohio.
In the “Hopewell” series, Timko recalls his childhood views of sunsets, as seen through the hazy filter of pastel yellow smoke belched out by local steel mills and chemical plants. “Hopewell #1 (Gray and Yellow)” is brimming with demonstrative, sturdy brushstrokes. The forcefulness of the action aspires to the compression and thrusting of shifting masses that take place beneath the earth’s surface, as well as the vital mark-making of Robert Motherwell in his “Elegy” series. Strident forms in black and gray paint march along side by side, slightly bowed, not adhering to any tenets of rigid geometry. Timko reinvents the now-familiar vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism by including drips that correlate with the lines left on the surface of rock walls. The monumental square format of Timko’s paintings allows us to imagine that we are witnessing vast sections of something more expansive and mysterious existing outside a set boundary in space. The orchestrations of wet and dry, soft and hard, horizontals and verticals, straight lines and fluid gestures all correspond in a series of aesthetic compliments occurring in one space. We might be standing above the hills or diving deep below the earth’s crust – whatever sensation comes up; it results from the artist’s acute interpretation of real space.
There’s a lot of fight to these works, as well as resolution. Timko remains hopeful about nature’s future. Out of something disruptive taking place in the land comes a positive processing of those experiences. In paintings like “Hopewell #20 (Yellow Divided),” layered vertical bands of white paint spread out into diagonal lines radiating upwards like beams of energy. Moments of chaos occur just above the flat areas of color, in a manner that bridges the gap between action painting and color-field abstraction. Drawing inspiration from some of the boldest figures in mid-century painting, including Franz Kline and Mark Rothko, Timko works in a series that emphasizes movement, scale emotion, sensory memory, and structure, all the while perfecting his ability to respond intuitively to the world around him.
-Jude Schwendenwien, New York City, NY.
Jude Schwendenwien is a curator and contributing critic to Sculpture Magazine, New Art Examiner, and Art Forum.
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