“Armstrong's vision is direct, purposeful but not laconic; A quietly expansive & joyful interpretation of an American landscape that veers between the representational and the less so.”
-Lilly Wei

©2011 Martha Armstrong

Martha Armstrong Landscapes

Carand Burnet review of Gross McCleaf show in the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2011
"Simplicity and Power"
Martha Armstrong, a visiting critic at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, shows her latest somewhat abstract rural landscape oils at McCleaf. These have a simplicity and power, their intensity of focus on feeling and seasonal changes being major elements in the tale she tells of her Vermont studio's natural surroundings that include ambitious exercises in reconciling geometry and gesture, adequately realized.

Carand Burnet review of Oxbow show in ART NEW ENGLAND July 2011
"For the past fifteen years, painter Martha Armstrong has interpreted the view from her Vermont cottage, portraying the area with a mixture of recollection and spontaneity. In 'Vermont Landscapes', the viewer follows the seasons of this mountainside, watching the summer trees and autumn red forms dart across the canvas. Along the way, Armstrong introduces sawing fence poles as anchor points to distinguish the vicinity, and as she aids the viewer in discerning the scale of the forest. Tactile brushstrokes, inlaid side by side, define shapes that meander between abstraction and representation. read more

Broad Street Review
'Martha Armstrong at Gross McCleaf'
by Andrew Mangravite
March 7, 2009. Martha Armstrong's new exhibition at Gross McCleaf shows where she has been and where she is going- namely, from Expressionism to abstraction and back again. Her journey offers a nice emotional contrast to the drier, more intellectual vision of Cézanne. read more

Martha Armstrong retrospective at Gross McCleaf
'Canvases project personality'
by Victoria Donohue for the Inquirer
March 6, 2009. Anything but pompous, Martha Armstrong's art offers direct meaning without sacrificing visual sophistication. Armstrong is an image-maker best known for her landscape and cityscape paintings and an occasional still life. Such work is the major theme dominating the 46 year retrospective of her paintings and drawings, "Up to Now", at Gross McCleaf. read more