Photos courtesy of Marty Kalb
Marty Kalb has used the Delaware area as a base of operations for more than 40 years, but his work is all over the world.
Growing up near New York City, at a very young age, Kalb was exposed to art at its finest, but it never crossed his mind to make it a career. In his third year of college at Michigan State University, though, after many different major changes, he settled on art education.
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Kalb then attended Yale University for graphic design at the suggestion of his adviser at MSU, Charles Pollock. Upon deciding that graphic design was not the artistic direction he wanted, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue art.
After college, he worked for a time at the University of Kentucky, developing a program for art educators. However his true joy came from his next job, at Ohio Wesleyan University. At OWU, Kalb was able to teach painting, drawing, history of art and graphic design.
“I really liked the small school and being able to have a relationship with my students that began freshman year and continued on through graduation,” Kalb says. “It turned out to be a perfect fit.”
His career in teaching also allowed him the freedom to create his art in a variety of forms without worrying about the marketing aspects. Having that steady income allowed him to explore different inspirations and styles, he says.
Kalb’s approach to art is methodical, yet passionate. He derives inspiration from many sources, including nature, politics, religion and human nature. He often starts with a photograph and uses it as a reference. In all of his works, he tries to find a certain emotion, whether it’s a dynamic movement, a calming presence or an intense feeling.
“I’m not trying to duplicate a photo, I’m trying to take information and inspiration from it that can then be crystalized to form these paintings that will then have the maximum level of intensity,” he says.
Kalb’s collection of works is expansive and features a wealth of subject matter done abstractly, realistically and impressionistically. He works with acrylics, primarily utilizing paintbrushes for his realistic pieces and a variety of tools, including trowels and squeegees, for his more abstract work.
He does his works in series, which means painting the same concept many different times and ways to achieve a full awareness of the subject matter. One such series is an homage to Delaware, showing off some of Delaware’s natural beauty through its streams and woods.
Another poignant series was a much darker, Holocaust-inspired series.
“That part of my work has a very specific mission: to tell a story that’s uncomfortable,” Kalb says. “It’s about what human beings do to other human beings. It fulfills a certain emotional need that I have to connect my work to political and social realities and create a sense of emotional awareness.”
With the benefit of his four decades of experience, Kalb’s views on what it means to be an artist are intense and no-nonsense, with the belief that being an artist
means not only mastery of the various tools and techniques of your trade, but also sheer artistic eye and talent. And that, he says, is something that cannot be taught. One must improve that oneself through hard work.
“You need to be organized, and you need to have an approach to art that is serious and ongoing,” he says. “The critical point is ‘ongoing.’ You can’t just wait for art to happen. You have to make the situation in which it happens.”
His works are inspired in part by his extensive travels all over Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East. He has a series inspired by a trip to the Galapagos Islands and is planning a series inspired by waterfalls in real life and in old Chinese paintings.
Several of Kalb’s works are currently housed in museums both in the U.S. and abroad. But his favorite gallery is Art Access Gallery in Bexley. He has been working with the gallery since it opened, and his own work is on display there.
Taylor Woodhouse is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
