Lenore Gray Gallery/Providence

Lloyd Martin, Paintings, David Newton, Sculpture

Lloyd Martin is a prolific and dedicated painter. The amazing thing is that he is continually creative, exploring new forms, new ways of painting. His recent exhibition at the Lenore Gray Gallery amply testified to this. In "Her", he continues the tan and black palette of earlier works while encorporating new forms. The surface is tactile, with encrustation of paint, circular shapes, and painterly, curvilinear swaths. For all its abstract presence, it could show an eclipse of the moon or an encounter with a goddess.

Another challenging canvas, "Elisium", is large in scale and cosmic in its implications, with a dark apocalyptic sky and a white scumbled ground. Here, Martin exploits the tension between two surfaces: a dark, collaged surface above, and a lighter, more thinly textured below.

In "Worm", twisting circular and curvilinear forms predominate. Even the smaller series "Ontological Diary" shows interesting, original and satisfying compositions.

The sculpture of David Newton complements Martin's paintings with playful and intrigueing shapes. "Fountain", a six-foot construction of wood, plaster and wire resembling a contemporary obelisk, is echoed by Martin's painting "Were" hanging nearby.

Newton's humor is particularly evident in "Cow", which incorporates a milk bottle as an udder. Newton's works have a strong abstract dimension and are filled with amusing references. Their three-dimensional forms engage in a fascinating dialogue with Martin's two -dimensional works, each bringing out the strength in the other. Newton tends to be more experimental, playing with forms and ideas to see how they will turn out, while Martin, though trying out new ideas, tends to follow a logical painterly evolution.