Martha Diamond is among the most perceptive painters of the last five decades. Her work’s formal concision and painterly bravado reflect an inner dialogue with generations of abstract artists, and the results demonstrate an inimitable handling of gesture and space that reimagines the landscape tradition while deftly sliding between abstraction and representation. Comprised of paintings, works on paper, and monotypes, Martha Diamond: Deep Time is a focused survey of the artist’s career that proposes “deep time” as a new way of understanding her contribution to American painting.
On view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, through May 18, 2025, the show spotlights the architectural and compositional fascinations that define the artist’s singular vision. It emphasizes her unswerving commitment to capturing the emotional character of built space, tracking throughlines across mediums and methods to reveal a process that combines spirited experimentation with perceptive observation. The exhibition features rarely seen pieces from the Lower Manhattan studio Diamond occupied for 54 years, ranging from the little-known “single-picture” images of the 1970s to the vertiginous paintings of her native New York City in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, to the vivid abstractions that increasingly characterized her later work.
Deep Time is accompanied by the artist’s first major monograph, an amply illustrated catalogue that includes an original essay by the exhibition’s co-curators, a chronology, and texts reprinted from some of Diamond’s most insightful critics: New York poets steeped in the visual arts. It documents the inspirations that converge in and are transformed by, Diamond’s enigmatic and utterly original work.
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This exhibition is co-organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Colby College Museum of Art, and co-curated by The Aldrich’s Chief Curator, Amy Smith-Stewart, and Colby’s Katz Consulting Curator, Levi Prombaum.
