Biography
Martin Blank has admired the grace and flow of the human form since childhood, digging into clay at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at age 13. In 1984, Martin earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. That same year, Blank moved west to begin his professional career in Seattle, working at the center for Studio Glass and learning from the driving force behind it; Mr. Dale Chihuly. Blank worked on the Chihuly team bringing his infectious enthusiasm and courageous desire to push the material for several years, all the while establishing his own contributions to the glass movement.
Blank’s early figurative work swiftly solidified his place as a premier figurative sculptor working in glass. Blank then expanded his contributions to the contemporary glass scene in 2001 when he introduced his sensual and fluid abstract landscapes.
Says Blank, “I am an intuitive artist. I work on the way forms relate to each other to cut a line in space that flows, turns and carries the eye around the piece. The forms reveal a negative space that is as vital and potent as the actual objects. My sculptural work is as much about the void as the mass.”
Martin Blanks’ work is about carving space. From the commanding musculature of a male torso, to the sensual curve of a vibrant scarlet abstract element, to the placid elegance of monumental glass trees, Blank creates on an massive scale with installation in prestigious corporate lobbies and a impressive public art installation for Museum of Glass, Blank courageously challenges the material creating a bold new vocabulary for fine art sculpture.
Martin Blank is represented by Sandra Ainsley Gallery, located in Toronto, the leading contemporary glass art gallery in Canada.