Biography

Martina Nehrling is utterly seduced by the formal complexity of color. She revels in its emotive slipperiness and enjoys mining its controversial decorativeness. The inextricability of these aspects unique to color continually spurs her engagement. Tuned to the vivid and continuous absurd disparities of daily life, she weaves visual rhythms—resonant, discordant, muscular, mellifluous—in patterns akin to botanical forms, currents and eddies, note taking, list making, pixilation and mapping. She uses multiple distinct brushstrokes for their staccato quality and graphic directness, and employs highly saturated chroma for its insistence, its unapologetic hysteria, its mirth and its madness. With this tensile language she explores what it means to be here, musing meditatively or ranting in lush celebration, high-pitched lament, or raucous rebellion. Martina Nehrling is a Chicago-based artist whose work is exhibited internationally and part of many public and private collections. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a MFA from the University of Chicago. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lake Forest College, and for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Chicago Arts Program. She has been awarded grants by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, and has presented her work at the Art Institute of Chicago Artists Connect Lecture Series. Kingston, New York and her home town of Indianapolis, Indiana feature her work in their public art installations. Martina Nehrling is represented by Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York.