By Anne Hilton Monday, September 17 2012

Glen Martin’s exhibition of “Recent Paintings” opened with a private viewing at Horizons Art Gallery on Tuesday.

Martin’s “signature” pieces are girls and young women seated, standing, washing, chatting in the bush. These are lyrical pieces, paintings to soothe you after a hard day at the office or fighting through traffic. They take you out to the forest where the rivers run clear, the air is fresh, all is calm — even though, as one who has walked through the bush, one worries about the girl’s bare back and bare legs in “The Thinker”, bearing in mind the snakes — bête rouge — and other beasties that inhabit the bush.

The bulk of this exhibition consists of these “signature” pieces, of lovely young women in the bush, or at home sewing, reading, doing household chores, resting, relaxing, thinking — like the girl in “The Thinker”.

However, “The Thinker” excepted, for the rest I have chosen to photograph for Newsday the less “pretty” pieces.

“Blues Night” is an impression of a group, the faces merely a sketch, a suggestion; only the instruments are well defined, lending the piece an atmosphere of the music itself.

We return, partly, to the idyllic in “A Moment by the River” — deep in the bush with a river running through and a youth perched on the river bank … “The Scarlet Ibis” is something of a departure for this artist, being but a vague impression of a flock of ibis rather than a clear depiction of the national bird — and all the more effective for being an impression of the birds and their reflections in the waters of the swamp.