The three new paintings Chris Martin has installed in an atrium of the Corcoran Gallery are big, and seem bigger. THE THREE NEW PAINTINGS Chris Martin has installed in an atrium of the Corcoran Gallery are big, and seem bigger. At 26 feet tall, they all reach past the balustrade on the mezzanine above and directly engage the columns that extend upward beyond its railing.

For a duo of New York painters known to discuss and even trade their work with each other, Joe Bradley and Chris Martin appear to have little in common as artists. While Martin is willing to walk the plank in hopes of finding something personal and exciting, Bradley is content to tinker at the periphery.

CM (Chris Martin): So what are you here to interview Chris Martin about?

JB (Joe Bradley): Whatever Chris wants to talk about.

CM: Who do you work for?

JB: The CIA.

CM: Fantastic.

Appropriately, the first piece one saw upon entering the gallery was "Seven Pointed Star (Black) (Basel)," 2008 - the fundamental symbol of alchemy - with vibrant red, green, and yellow points radiating geometrically off a lush black background.

Chris Martin is not afraid to make art that openly alludes to the work of Paul Feeley, Alfred Jensen, Philip Guston, Forrest Bess, Blinky Palermo, and Frank Stella, but in a way that is sophisticated and innocent.

According to Irving Sandler's 1984 monograph to the late Al Held, while still a student had the extravagant ambition to "synthesize the total objectivity of Piet Mondrian with the total subjectivity of Jackson Pollock."

In the midst of preparations for his current exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in Chelsea (January 26–March 1, 2008) Chris Martin welcomed painter and Rail contributing writer Craig Olson to his Williamsburg studio to discuss his life and work.

Chris Martin, an American, and Michael Krebber, a German, were both born in 1954. Krebber has suggested that he might be a failed actor who is seen by others as a Conceptual artist, one who finds ways to paint, because it's a good idea, often by various kinds of not-painting (used stretched gingham or horse blankets instead of oil on canvas).

Chris Martin burst back on the scene last September with a bumptious show at Brooklyn gallery brilliantly named Sideshow. Alas, I missed it, but lucky for me, Los Angeles is now securely on the map for the hardcore Brooklyn abstract painters, most of whom, when I was living in New York 15 years ago, never made it west of the Hudson River.

Chris Martin is a perennial member of the large, by nature neglected, nonetheless crucial and treasured confederacy known as "artist's artists." He's one of the dark horses and workers-at-the-edge respected by their peers who never quite get their due.