2011 Making The Road By Walking

Making the Road by Walking

A 2011 two person show Making the Road by Walking with Thomas Christopher Haag at The Compound Gallery, Oakland.

“Making the road by walking” is an apt title for this show by two painters whose work is heavily influenced by their own travel experiences. It also is a good encapsulation of their individual art-making processes where the making of paintings is an open-ended exploration of images and ideas, guided by a mix of strategy, reflection, and intuition. With a nod to the Magical Realists, the work of both artists features humans and animals as protagonists, symbols or metaphors in their oblique narratives.

The roles of migrant and traveler are central to Martin Webb’s work and this group of mixed media paintings draws partly from recent time spent in the coastal towns of Senegal. For some time, Webb’s work has reflected the belief that there’s more that makes us similar than makes us different, and this body of work looks more closely at some of those common denominators: the necessity of work; the desire to travel for opportunity; the centrality of water in supporting our lives. In this collection of work, an anonymous cast of animals and people play out these ideas to the accompaniment of spirituals and work-songs.

The show features an installation "Making the Road" comprising of 75 small 6 x 6 pieces on plywood, half from each artist.