Martha Diamond Found Joy in Paint
Diamond’s attention to the brush’s capacity to be simultaneously expressive and responsive is visible throughout her strongest paintings.
by John Yau 
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In “Change” (1981), vertical yellow brushstrokes pick up the underlayer of black without becoming muddy. The direction of the yellow and black strokes articulates the building’s volume and surface. The carefully arranged intensities of blue in “Center City” (1982) culminate in a moody, nighttime view of an unlit building. Paint is always paint even as it becomes light, shadow, cloud-filled windows of a modernist edifice, solid surfaces, or dissolving and melting forms. Walking in Manhattan, Diamond sees the city rising up around her, and admits to the anxiety it stirs up. Her paintings are full of joy and solitude, calm and heightened awareness.
Martha Diamond: Deep Time continues at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut) through May 18. The exhibition was co-organized by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Colby College Museum of Art, and co-curated by the Aldrich’s Chief Curator, Amy Smith-Stewart, and Colby’s Katz Consulting Curator, Levi Prombaum.
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