---- A Luminous Void stands for a wishful cleared mental space that unfolds and transcend past (self) judgements and restrictions, creating a realm of boundless possibilities. The artist depicts several phases of togetherness and separation within herself.
Her first work of the show is in the form of releasing a shadow self that infringed persons live with for so long it has become a dreaded but trusted companion. Martine Johanna pepicts her protagonist in diverse states of discomfort with herself, emotional shifting and fluctuating states, her surroundings are often dreamlike, not fully landscapes but hints of her self created arena.
The void is faced never alone but with different aspects of her personality that, like the chimera, is a puzzle part of one being.
Martine Johanna is a Dutch contemporary artist. Her figurative, near realistic, paintings explore the inner (psychological) workings of, as she names it: "the female chimerical house". A symbolic house that embodies the mental fluctuations of an infringed female roaming a male infrastructure while trying to retain and evoke her own narratives and experiences; expressing a complex compartmentalized survival strategy within the social fabric she is a part of.
The painterly works are of a self developed style and technique in an optimistic prismatic color spectrum reminiscent of Mid Century idealism. In addition referencing both dreamy fleeting abstractions of distorted cut-throughs and light prisms, simultaneously referring to female old masters such as Artemisia Gentileschi, through gloomy lightfall and elucidating dynamic compositions; an exploratory play between modernity and tradition.