News

Recent Press & Reviews

Martha Armstrong: From Arizona to Vermont, Artsy, May 2023

Recent paintings by Martha Armstrong – This new work features Armstrong’s distinctive energetic compositions in landscape paintings depicting two contrasting environments: the forested hills of Vermont and the deserts of Arizona.

Martha Armstrong in her studio at her home in Hatfield. Photo by Carol Lollis / Daily Hampshire Gazette

Two artists offer studies in light, Nancy A. Olsen, Brattleboro Reformer, September 5, 2019

Martha Armstrong, whose graduate degree is from Rhode Island School of Design, grew up in Ohio. She knew by the time she was 5 years old that she wanted to be a painter. In kindergarten, she was so absorbed in her painting that she missed the juice-and-cookies break. The subsequent seven decades (and counting) hold an impressive record of artistic achievement.

Martha Armstrong at Bowery Gallery, artcritical, March 28, 2019

In the jagged bright spaces of Armstrong’s paintings, traditional landscape turns into something fresh. Yes, It’s a welcoming, summery world. But it’s vertiginous rather than tranquil—every picture an endorphin rush. Branches and clouds fold into odd, exact origami shapes. Craft disappears into excitement. ALEXI WORTH

Martha Armstrong / New Paintings, Bowery Gallery Blog, March 18, 2019

Armstrong herself says that she is most influenced by Modernism, painting of the late 19th century and the first sixty years of the 20th, the experimentation and intuition, the focus on metaphor.

Art Maker: Martha Armstrong, painter, Steve Pfarrer, Daily Hampshire Gazette, Friday, June 22, 2018

I draw inspiration from looking. I am fascinated by the landscape: something huge you must translate to human size. How to imply scale, to catch the color, the light, before it changes. I don’t normally paint from memory. But after working on location for several days or weeks, I know I am working half from memory.

Art Review: Martha Armstrong: A Big Deal in a Little Town, Gina Beavers, The Valley Advocate, May 23, 2018

In her portraits, Armstrong’s peculiar style translates effortlessly; she finds the right balance between loose interpretation and making the object identifiable. In some cases, there’s much less of an abstract quality and more notes of cubism.

Interview with Martha Armstrong, Painting Perceptions, Larry Groff, March 28, 2016

Martha Armstrong’s painting combines close observation with invention in a balanced measure, which she uses to create solid structures and harmonies that dance parallel alongside nature.

Review: Martha Armstrong’s Nature Scenes at Bowery Gallery, Roberta Smith, The New York Times, September 24, 2015

“Ms. Armstrong is the suave disciplinarian of a muscular style. She stacks blocky shapes of color that describe one landscape — a hill with some woods and a shack — visible from the window of her Vermont studio that may be her Mont Sainte-Victoire. But her shapes also maintain a nearly sculptural independence, hovering slightly above the image, just beyond legibility. At once improvisational and carefully carpentered, these paintings explode toward the eye, like nature on first sight, at its most welcoming and irrepressible.”