Contributed by Kun Kyung Sok / “Pouring Water Into Water,” Sarah Martin-Nuss’s first solo exhibition at the Rachel Uffner Gallery, comprises paintings and drawings that immerse viewers in fluid abstract landscapes inspired by marshes she remembers from her youth on Texas’s Gulf Coast. The paintings initially suggest serene swamps, their surfaces reflecting the sky and surrounding features. Deeper scrutiny uncovers two worlds closer by – one above the water paced by reeds swaying in a wet mist, and another below it teeming with aquatic creatures shimmering in the sunlight.
Dubbed post-humanist, Martin-Nuss deconstructs anthropocentrism and nature’s putative hierarchy. Donna Haraway, a prominent post-humanist thinker, argues for the dissolution of boundaries between humans, animals, and machines. Martin-Nuss goes farther, embracing water as an expression of integration through transformation and creation, which seems akin to the Taoist and Zen Buddhist concept of unity between the ego and the outside world.
She has effectively transferred the surface of the marsh onto the canvas, using layers of oil paint to simulate the texture of water and lines of oil pastel to depict the rising wet fog and the sunlight spreading across the water’s surface. Multilayered colors and intense brushstrokes blur the boundaries between air and water, creating mirages. The paintings do not depict a hierarchical world but rather a flattened plane on which all perceptible elements are perpetually interacting.
Martin-Nuss’s use of color is both subtle and striking. She employs a muted palette of blues, greens, and grays to evoke the tranquil yet mysterious atmosphere of the marshes, casting images above and below the water simultaneously. Delicate gradations of color mimic the natural play of light to almost hypnotic effect. Like water itself, her line is fluid and unpredictable and her brushwork is gently gestural, suggesting a rhythmic flow. The paintings encourage us to see the world afresh, to apprehend beauty as a dynamic phenomenon, and to appreciate the fleeting moments that ultimately define our lives.
“Sarah Martin-Nuss: Pouring Water Into Water,” Rachel Uffner Gallery, 170 Suffolk Street, New York, NY. Through August 16, 2024.
About the author: Born in Seoul and based in Brooklyn, Kun Kyung Sok holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts and is a multidisciplinary artist and writer.
gorgeous work!