Biography
Born in 1953 in Odense, Denmark.
Lives and works in Copenhagen and Northern Sealand.
Peter Martensen sets in the manner of a scenographer who juxtaposes accessories and human figures in a space that is both familiar and unknown to us. His works become the conveyor of poignant observations, deep anxieties, yet also a meeting place with dreams. In a multiverse world, Peter Martensen brings the most diverse registers and “realities” together, that form our perceptive frame in all its complex scope. He speaks of a “mental reality”.
Drawing occupies a very important place in Peter Martensen’s work: charcoal offers modelling in the most subtle tones, watercolor or ink a fluidity, which quick pencil and pen strokes define and delineate.
Exhibitions
bla bla bleu
Peter Martensen
04.02 – 27.03.2021
“Blue conversations” between the two Danish artists are behind bla bla bleu, the first shared exhibition of painter Peter Martensen and his dear friend poet, performer and artist Morten Søndergaard.
Indigo lies at the heart of it all: its sounds, space, light, time. Peter Martensen alludes to the indigo colour as a state and evokes the distance it brings as a master of memory and oblivion. He points out its luminosity in the obscurity and compares its melancholic tone to a cello’s. Morten Søndergaard puts forth its transformative and enchanting dimension, its link to the depths of existence.
Undone sketches
Peter Martensen
17.06. – 23.07.2016
Intentions, ideas, notes, projects, plans, diaries, memoirs, registers, archives or simple sheets of paper… Our life, our thoughts, our dreams often exist in writing – and sometimes only exist as written traces… Drawers and other containers are filled with them. To this we can add the attempts, the aborted projects, the impossibilities… The confrontation with a reality that does not want to emerge or that collides with the eternal lack of time. Not to mention documents with such sensitive material that they live in the shadows… until the day when …
Call from inside
Peter Martensen
14.09. – 03.11.2018
Determined actions, apathy and immobility cohabitate in Peter Martensen’s latest works. Parallel scenarios play out simultaneously – an atmosphere both strange and familiar hovers … From there emanates a feeling of mystery, abdication, even chaos where images of timeless tranquility slip in. Call from inside, the title of his new show raises questions. Is it an allusion to our deeper self ? Could it be a reference to primary layers, recalling certain fundamentals of human existence? Or maybe an incentive to wake up ?
Off site
MAMC, Saint-Etienne Métropole
Ravage
Peter Martensen
09. 03 – 27. 08. 2017
Sans cesse en quête d’une vérité artistique et existentielle, Peter Martensen trace, à travers sa peinture, son propre chemin, indépendamment des modes parfois aléatoires du monde de l’art. Nombreux sont les musées danois qui lui ont offert leurs cimaises et depuis, il a été présenté en Suède, en Italie, en Corée comme à New York ou Paris. Ravage est sa première exposition monographique dans un musée français [extrait du communiqué de presse].
Maison du Danemark, Paris
Ravage
Peter Martensen
06. 09 – 29. 10. 2017
Première exposition de l’artiste sur la scène institutionnelle parisienne, Ravage rassemble peintures, dessins, sculpture et vidéos témoignant de la cohérence de la démarche de l’artiste. Loin d’une rétrospective de l’œuvre de Peter Martensen, cette exposition intervient dans une période de création particulièrement riche et innovante dans sa carrière dont elle se veut l’écho [extrait du communiqué de presse].
Press
Publications and texts
Peter Martensen – video
MAMC+ Saint-Etienne
Film produced for Peter Martensen’s exhibition “Ravage” (Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Etienne Métropole, 2017).
Meeting – video
Peter Martensen & Morten Søndergaard
with the kind participation of Barbara Polla