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Born and raised in Minnesota, Martin Waldera has a tolerance for diversity. "We can
be enjoying 80 degree weather one day and be sharpening our snow shovels the next. These types of changes affect your decisions, your moods, your needs and have influenced my art." He finds that his art varies throughout the seasons and the years
from abstract to a naive impressionism. "I am absolutely enthralled by abstract art,
I retun to it constantly. Within abstraction lies reality."
Martin is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in Studio Arts.
In studying art history, he was attracted to the Surrealists, especially Dali and Tanguy,
as well as Duchamp. "At the University of Minnesota, George Morrison made a lasting impression upon me with his abstractions of earth and sky and their relation to the
horizon. Recently, I've enjoyed the abstract woodblock prints of Hodaka Yoshida and
their "primitive energy." Together the study of these artists and others have shaped
my interpretation of art and guided my hand to create work that defines me."
Martin's recent paintings are the culmination of years of small successes and many
failures, a continuous process. As diverse as the Minnesota climate is, the influences
are evident within his acrylic paintings. " I begin working serendipitously on multiple
pieces and rely on "happy accidents", then I paint more intuitively in reaction to my
initial marks. When finished I hope to discover elements of ancient maps, paths of the
explorers, primitive cave drawings, aboriginal symbols, mythology figures, astrological signs, abstract land forms, great geologic events, oriental ideograms, native pictographs, rock and roll music and the blues."
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