"Why Not," John Martini's grimly amusing series of steel sculptures, experiments with crude pairings of body parts and tools or machines to explore issues of bodily functionality. But the figures are not entirely machine-like: their stiff, industrial bodies are offset by their facial expressions. Full of a lighthearted anxiety, these figures (all 2002-3) depart from Martini's whimsical flowing sculptures of the last 15 years, where implied motion reflects the influence of a carefree island environment (Martini lives in Key West).
Martini created these new sculpture by laying up to four identical pieces of steel, brushing on solid enamel colors - red, orange, yellow, blue and gray - then welding and cutting them with a blowtorch. The intense heat blasts the paint, leaving a dark, bubbled edge.
Soft geometric forms become birds, cats, and elements of the human figure - especially heads, which surfaced in Martini's work about five years ago. Blue Bust, a 500-pound peacock-blue lima bean-shaped head with a dumbfounded expression, rests on a yellow neck and blue base, without any indication of arms or legs. In Boid is the Woid, a bird perches on a head with a grimacing mouth and comical ears, seemingly listening to the avian communication but unable to react.
Action Cat, a monstrous sharp-toothed kitty on wheels, is both robotic and primitive. And Floating Away, which shows five spermatozoa-like creatures each expressing a different emotion, suggest cells attempting to communicate.
In contrast to the physical restraint of these works was Three Graces Three, which shows three tall female figures reaching for one another and the sky, their lower limbs resembling the roots of a mangrove tree, which is famously relentless in it's drive to anchor itself in muddy shallow waters. A mustard yellow patina offered a hint of warmth. This is Martini's third iteration of the graces, and with each subsequent sculpture they become more abstract yet no less expressive.