‘Chris Martin: Painting Big’

Not all of Chris Martin’s paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art are as big as the three 26-foot-tall canvases in the museum’s Atrium. But taken as a whole, they grapple with some big ideas.

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Vistors to the Corcoran Gallery of Art's Atrium are dwarfed by three giant canvases by painter Chris Martin: from left, "Birds Sing in the Morning (Homage to Purvis Young)"; "Light Brahma Stomp"; and "Radio Sunset." Painted with a broom while laid flat on the ground, they're covered with collage elements like a scrapbook: gold glitter, pictures of musicians and birds, and footprints of the artist's pet chicken, Helen. They're sculptures as much as pictures.

Denny Henry /

In the museum's circular Rotunda, you'll find a lively and varied cluster of 50 small works, showing the wide range of unorthodox materials used by the artist.

Denny Henry

As an art material, Wonder bread is "probably just as close to paint as it is to food," according to Martin. He puts that theory to the test in "White Bread," a painting made from bread coated in polymer medium and acrylic paint (i.e., plastic). The piece demonstrates the artist's fondness for incorporating everyday materials in his work.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Things most people throw away become fodder for Chris Martin's art, as in his "Artichoke Painting," which appears to be made from spray-painted artichoke leaves.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

"Small Pillow Painting" is just what it sounds like. The 2004 work, an airbrushed throw pillow, blurs the lines between folk art and fine art and between the everyday and the extraordinary.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Though he says he doesn't know why, the number 7 has special significance for Martin and appears in many of his works, both explicitly (as in this work, titled "=6=7=8") and implicitly. See how many pictures in the show you can find that repeat something seven times.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Martin grew up in Washington in the 1960s, listening to soul and R&B on radio stations WOL and WOOK. "Godfather of Soul" incorporates a picture of James Brown, and is an attempt to express the feeling, not the sound, of soul music.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and KOW Berlin

An entire gallery spotlights Martin's interest in landscape, but indirectly, through colorful abstraction.

Denny Henry

Along the Ganges River, in Varanasi, India, are several ghats, or stepped embankments. In "Ganges Sunrise Asi Ghat, Varanasi…," Martin evokes the ghat's steps and the intensity (if not the literal nature) of the morning light.

Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

"Here Comes the Sun…" suggests the play of light on water. Note that the number of rippling bands of vertical color is seven, a significant number that appears again and again in the artist's work.

Jason Mandella / Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

The painting "Lake" isn't meant as a representation of how a lake looks, but how it feels. The strikingly horizontal image calls to mind the shimmering surface, but not the substance, of water.

Denny Henry

"Hemlock" is one of the few paintings in "Painting Big" that actually look like something -- in this case, towering evergreens. But they convey a sense of wonder about trees, more than the trees themselves.

Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash

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‘Chris Martin: Painting Big’

Not all of Chris Martin’s paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art are as big as the three 26-foot-tall canvases in the museum’s Atrium. But taken as a whole, they grapple with some big ideas.

Featured Photo Galleries