MARTIN WITTFOOTH : THE ARCHAIC REVIVAL

Film by Eric Minh Swenson.

Los Angeles (September 13, 2016) — On October, 1st, Corey Helford Gallery will proudly presentincomparable New York-based artist Martin Wittfooth, whose powerful works take on the majesty of a world in conflict with its most beautiful inhabitants in his newest series of oil paintings titled "The Archaic Revival."
 
Wittfooth’s latest series employs a variety of painting techniques, ranging from delicate and detailed brush treatments to heavily textured palette knife applications, and deliberate attention is given to the scale of the works to impart gravity and presence to the images. “The Archaic Revival” marks the first series in which Wittfooth has explored bronze sculpture as a medium; plus, two large-scale sculptures will make their debut.

Of his new work, Wittfooth says: “‘The Archaic Revival’ is a title borrowed from late philosopher, author and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, who explored the notion that Western culture and society has become sick, and is undergoing a healing process by a reversion to archaic values and behaviors. In my latest series of paintings and sculptures I aim to pay tribute to this idea, that in our species’ long collective march out of the proverbial garden toward greater technological complexity and the effects this process has and will have on the world around us, it is in the past that we may truly see ourselves reflected back at us as we really are: nature itself. McKenna argued that this return toward the archaic began in earnest in the troubled 20th Century via an interest in the subconscious in the works of Freud and Jung, primitivism, surrealism and abstraction in art and music, and culminated in the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s, a revolution that was suppressed to a large degree until the dawn of the 21st Century. The new series seeks to contribute to this revitalized conversation: our era is riddled with turmoil and uncertainty stemming from our dominion rather than stewardship of the world that we inhabit. Perhaps our salvation lies in the recognition that beneath the veneer of our culture we are the very same nature that we have pushed to the margins.”

About Martin Wittfooth:
Martin Wittfooth was born in Toronto, Canada in 1981 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley in New York. He earned his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2008. Wittfooth’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, with solo exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Montreal. His paintings have also appeared in numerous publications, including Juxtapoz, American Art Collector, and Vice, and cover features in New American Paintings, Hi-Fructose and American Artist Magazine.
 

Currently, Wittfooth’s original painting “Incantation” is on view in Hi-Fructose's "Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose" exhibition at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art through December 2016.

For more info on Eric Minh Swenson visit his website at thuvanarts.com. His art films can be seen at thuvanarts.com/take1

Eric Minh Swenson also covers the international art scene and his writings and photo essays can be seen at Huffington Post Arts : http://m.huffpost.com/us/author/eric-...