Eddie Martinez, “The Deal in Blue”, 2020
The Deal in Blue was painted by Eddie Martinez (born in 1977). He is an American artist in painting and sculpture. He lives and works in New York. His career spans for 20 years. His works have been exhibited in several galleries and museums, like Drawing Center in New York, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.
The Deal in Blue is an ‘in-between’ painting, which is between abstract and figurative painting. It depicts many everyday life things (such as plate, leaves, and playing cards) but also abstract forms. As referred by the title, the dominant color of this painting is blue, but without excluding other colors such as red, green, and yellow.
This composition reminds me of the circumstances throughout the year of 2020. At the beginning of this year, we suffered the global pandemic. Not long after that, in May, the killing of George Floyd awoke the mourning people around the world to take protests against racism. On the other hand, some certain politicians made the pandemic situation being worse by repressing or banning democracy. As a result, protests happened in various places in the world, such as Belarus, France, Thailand, the United States, and many other countries. We try to cope with these difficult times, as Martinez’s painting says “deal in blue”. Blue is occasionally associated with sadness but also calm and confidence.
Martinez’s work is often compared with the previous painters such as Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, and Philip Guston. However, Martinez wants more than redundancy of the other prior works. Martinez is refining and renewing the old style of painting and create his own painting format.
The Deal in Blue is, in W.J.T. Mitchell’s term, a pivotal picture of our difficult times. With this picture, we more understand ourselves and other generations in the future can feel the traces of what we experienced today.