Eugene J. Martin (1938 – 2005)
African American visual artist.
Money inspires activity, not honesty.
Being able to communicate with someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand them.
There are opposing forces in all living things. My work reflects this and stirs up a contrast of emotions in the viewer... perception versus annoyance. To the viewer who has reached that level of awareness, my work is no longer abstract, but very real.
While traveling our separated roads through life, we are also either road signs or potholes on the roads of others.
People have learned to escape reality very well but too often lose their way back.
Because of subconscious guilt, people spend half their lives in self-punishment and the other half taking on more guilt.
Passion is a disguise for attachment – sometimes as hate and other times as love.
One solution to one problem makes two problems.
One tool that is used most and has the greatest misuse of power is looks, and another tool that is used least and has the least desire for power is wisdom.
There are lesser people not for what they are, but for why they are.
When making a commitment, make it not to someone, but of someone to yourself.
Americans are simple people with simple interests – The only time they sincerely ask “why” about anything is when they don’t receive their paychecks.
Conflict is necessary for growth. But too often conflict becomes a haven for the soul. Until one day, the soul can no longer free itself. In real growth the soul learns to fly rather than having the ego inflated with praise from accomplishments as if it were a balloon. Only because it buys time, do we develop a strong and protective ego. This is the early stage in the soul’s evolution, until such time when the soul hatches out of its shell, which is the ego, into a new world in which there is incomparable beauty.
If you seek just a little truth, as most, you should not ignore abstract forms, the basis from which all short-lived experiences we call reality springs.
Sometimes when you feed on another’s word you must eat it like a banana – you peel it first.
One element that seems to run throughout Martin's forty years of work is the physical and psychological mechanics of the body/mind. Whether spirited in animals or manifested through abstraction, they are about ourselves: our neurosis, the dreams we hope for, how we eat... Ultimately though, they reveal our resistance to escape the gravitational pull of stillness - the inevitable conclusion to life.
Truth rides best In that which looks ridiculous.
The words “human nature” can be the greatest obstacle to human growth.
In order to stay clear of pain, we must know and know why we feel best while having pain.
Truth is so large OR people’s minds are so small that they’re only able to nibble on the edges – and when growth brings them to the area where they can feed on truth itself, as they move in and eat of the seed, there they become truth.