New York
The Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery
Martha Walker is a microbiology-minded Surrealist whose recent show, “Broken World, Anxious Heart,” imagined a toxic garden. Long ago, its seems, life rose from luxuriant waters, briefly inhaled the air’s sweetness, then froze. Denizens of this now-petrified forest of twisted steel skeletons include feminine breeds undulating their potent animas and biomorphic forms caught between joie de vivre and a danse macabre. Formally elegant species defy weighty steel, and negative arabesques assert themselves within masses of dense metal. It’s all best described as lyrical gravitas. Walker’s deft handling of molten steel produces these inverted narratives. Mixed Emotions (2015), for example, consists of a pair of outstretched, tentacled arms rising like starfish limbs performing a water ballet. …see the entire review in the print version of November’s Sculpture magazine.
