Martin Maloney. Up Close And Personal: Personal Exhibition

Maloney’s portraits are not driven by the pursuit of photographic resemblance. Instead, he seeks to expand the language of figurative painting. His compositions feature luminous, often clashing colors, broad areas of flat tone, and patterned details that echo across figure and ground. Clothing motifs frequently merge with landscape elements, transforming the image into a unified, decorative composition.

In the early 2000s, Maloney began incorporating collage into his practice. His portraits and landscapes—built from thousands of colored vinyl stickers—form densely textured, vibrant surfaces that shimmer with visual energy. This technique recalls Mikhail Vrubel’s crystalline brushwork and continues Maloney’s exploration of expressive surface. He refers to his style as “the language of expressive painting”: marked by clarity of color, fluid mark-making, inventive compositional rhythms, and bold, unexpected juxtapositions. Within this visual vocabulary, one can trace echoes of the celebratory depictions of Edward Burra and the emotional intensity of Edvard Munch. In Maloney’s work, painterly freedom meets psychological insight, resulting in a distinctly contemporary form of expression—bold, playful, and profoundly human.