My art career began when Abstract Expressionism was recognized as the new American Art. Exhibitions at New York galleries made a lasting impression— to make new visual statements.
Over the years, I have traveled to understand how artists perceive life in their time and have seen original art collections in historical context in Europe, England, Scandinavia, Mexico, Central America, and at regional US art centers. I have considered how my art-making would be influenced by masters of perception.
My art direction is to make artifacts from imagination and recall. I focus on a visual concept. My intention is to solve a problem and the way I experience it through completion.
There can be no objective conclusion, except that all art making is subjective. Ultimately, distinctions are based on individual creations as a “body of work”—foreground-background, perspective, modeling, outlined shapes, light and color tonal gradations and the path of the viewer’s eye over a two-dimensional surface.
My artwork is original. I do not copy or draw from human figures or landscapes. I make a series of abstract line drawings within a square or rectangle ratio. When I like some of the drawings, I select one and “scale-up” the line drawing by projecting it onto a stretched canvas of the same ratio, secured to an easel. Then the work begins.

Jack Martinelli