Bernhard Martin

Bernhard Martin's collages present a broad array of vividly colored visual references that call to mind images encountered in advertising, magazines, mail-order catalogues and television programs. Pursuing a principle comparable to that of a baroque chamber of wonders, Hanover-born Martin arranges images both familiar and obscure around a basic motif, distilling from the whole a panorama of our world. In creating these mementos, the artist reinvents ordinary textbook illustrations or candy wrappers and, with them, composes collages of these seemingly harmless everyday sequences that are gorged with visual imagery, and transformed into captivating cultural critiques.