Martin Basher’s painting and sculptural work is situated in the lineage of display-based artistic practices. Working with the languages of retail and advertising, Basher explores the emotional undercurrents of everyday objects and images in a display setting. From his trademark paintings of gradated stripes and photo-real beaches to sculptural installations serving as displays for consumer goods, Basher activates spaces of sublimated psychological desire, at once familiar and strange for the altered retail scenarios they present. In these complex displays, Basher invokes unspoken drives, and the mundane and exclusive, the highbrow and lowbrow, and the public and private impulses that inform us as consuming individuals.
Martin Basher (b. 1979, Wellington New Zealand) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Basher received his MFA from Columbia University in 2008, and will receive a Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2018. Basher has previously exhibited at institutions including The Public Art Fund, NYC; Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC; Exit Art, NYC; Art in General, NYC; The Contemporary Art Galleries at the University of Connecticut, Connecticut; ARTSPACE and The Auckland Art Museum, Auckland, New Zealand; and The City Gallery of Wellington, New Zealand. Basher has exhibited work in solo, group shows and fairs at galleries including Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; Tracy Williams Ltd, Kansas Gallery; Susan Inglett Gallery; 47 Canal, NYC; Brand New Gallery, Milan; Sophia Contemporary, London, and Starkwhite, Auckland.
