Martyna Alexander: The Distant Now
June 21 - August 2nd
Opening reception: June 21, 6-9pm
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old friends is pleased to present The Distant Now, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Detroit-based artist Martyna Alexander (b. 1989, Ann Arbor, MI).
Alexander probes sensory memories, encountering within them aqueous, lush landscapes. She forms an indistinct geography from gentle, earthen-toned brushstrokes. In this space, figures blur and bleed; luminous green rambles into steely mountains. The scenes manifest as impressions of place, substantially intangible.
Superimposed on the bucolic ground, Alexander places suggestively organizational pictographic marks. Chromatic framing devices, court lines, and wingdings hover on an invisible film. These forms appear solid, rising above the vaporous landscape. The underlying scene shifts and melts.
In The Intimate Time Among Hills (2025), a looming red-earth hill bleeds into foggy sky, solid, not still. The tonal washes at times interrupt Alexander’s graphic overlay. Graphite court lines in The Application of a Semi-Rigid System (2025) sink into a deep field, the field itself bleeds into atmosphere. Nothing is static; each gesture on the brink of fluctuating, fading, or floating away.
Alexander thinks of utopias as she paints. Her compositions are intimate viewfinders into conjured worlds, accessed through an intuitive inner vision. She gazes towards these promised vistas, their phenomena veiled in glowing hues.
The Distant Now will be on view at old friends, 3405 N. Paulina St., Chicago, IL, June 21st through August 2nd. The gallery is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 12-6 pm, and by appointment. Please email office@oldfriendsgallery.com with questions or inquiries.
