Demetri Martin brought visual art to stand-up. Can he take comedy into the art world?

I wasn’t expecting a coating of a bare clown to greet maine erstwhile I FaceTimed Demetri Martin connected a Monday day successful May. After the longest 2 seconds of my life, the comedian appeared successful beforehand of the camera with an unassuming smile.

For the past fewer months, Martin has been toiling distant successful the workplace shed designed by his wife, interior decorator Rachael Beame Martin, successful the backyard of their Beverly Glen home. Lush greenery peeks done the windows supra a lattice helium constructed to equine canvases of assorted sizes. His archetypal solo accumulation of paintings and drawings is conscionable days distant and helium has immoderate finishing touches to make.

Visual creation is not caller to Martin, a wiz astatine one-liners who incorporates drawings successful his stand-up.

“The chill happening astir a drafting is I tin stock thing idiosyncratic and I tin usage a graphic to exemplify it much specifically,” helium says successful “Demetri Deconstructed,” his 2024 Netflix special. In 1 graph from the special, helium plots the inverse narration betwixt the magnitude of “past” and “future” clip crossed an individual’s lifespan. The constituent wherever “past” and “future” conscionable is the mid-life existential crisis.

There is simply a synergy betwixt Martin’s jokes and his sketches, which are much akin to doodles than drawings. Their wit lies successful their pared-down specificity. They “make you ponder thing connected the absurdity-of-life level, which I conjecture is comedy,” says Martin’s adjacent person and instrumentalist Jack Johnson.

“I brought ocular creation into my stand-up comedy,” says Demetri Martin. “Can I bring drama into the ocular creation world?”

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

With his emotion of gag crafting, Martin says helium represents the drama aged defender arsenic stand-up has go heavy autobiographical successful today’s net age.

“Specifically, it’s jokes that person ever attracted maine erstwhile we’re talking astir the drama world,” Martin says of his aversion to storytelling. “Can you bash a gag successful 12 words? Can you get an thought across? How overmuch tin you instrumentality distant and it inactive lands with people?”

“Acute Angles,” Martin’s solo accumulation moving Sunday to May 31, takes his obsession with constraint a measurement further. The experiment: Can you pass jokes visually without immoderate words?

“I brought ocular creation into my stand-up comedy,” says Martin, who worked connected paintings for two-plus years earlier helium figured helium had capable worldly to capable a gallery. “Can I bring drama into the ocular creation world?”

“Acute Angles” — helium says the rubric references the signifier of his chemoreceptor — features large-scale paintings with a unifying colour palette of agleam red, entity bluish and mean gray, successful summation to 30 smaller drawings. The paintings picture implausible scenarios: What if the grim reaper slipped connected a banana connected his mode to termination you? What if Superman ripped his underpants connected his quest to prevention you?

The amusement is simply a collaboration with his wife, whom helium adoringly describes arsenic the muscles of the operation. The 2 secured a month-long lease of an abandoned yoga workplace tucked down a California Pizza Kitchen successful Brentwood. Using her plan skills — they met successful New York City erstwhile she was attending Parsons School of Design and helium was pursing drama — Beame Martin led a rebuild of the studio-turned-gallery.

When Martin’s publicist called to inquire if the assemblage had a name, the mates turned to Google. They yet came up with “Laconic Gallery,” for Laconia, Greece, wherever Martin traces his roots, and due to the fact that the connection laconic perfectly describes Martin’s ethos: marked by the usage of fewer words.

Demetri Martin describes his wife, Rachael Beame Martin, arsenic the muscles of the operation.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

On the time of our interview, Martin is completing the past of 12 paintings for the amusement and is puzzled wherefore the overgarment appears otherwise connected the canvas than successful the can. He’s trying hard to guarantee the colour of the bare clown’s pubic hairsbreadth matches his hair.

The narration betwixt the spectator and the creation is some breathtaking and scary to Martin. When taking a drama amusement connected the road, you much oregon little cognize your jokes volition land, helium says. With an creation show, there’s much of a vacuum betwixt him and the audience, yet the conceit remains: the amusement is meant to beryllium funny.

But whether viewers laughter portion visiting the creation accumulation astir doesn’t matter. For Martin, the reward has been the process of instauration — the meditative portion helium sinks into, indie stone oozing from his CD player, arsenic helium envisions and re-envisions the work. (Many of the paintings successful the amusement are derived from aged sketches.)

The amusement besides represents Martin’s re-emergence from his ain mid-life existential crisis. At 51, helium is older than his dada was erstwhile helium died and astir the aforesaid property arsenic his precocious mom, erstwhile she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. “So now, is this similar bonus clip for me?” helium started to inquire himself successful his precocious 40s.

In immoderate ways, Martin has ever been a tortured artist. After graduating from Yale, helium attended NYU Law lone to driblet retired aft the 2nd year. But New York City is besides wherever helium recovered himself, spending precocious nights astatine the Comedy Cellar and the Boston Comedy Club. His days were spent visiting the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Daydreaming his mode done the galleries, jotting jokes successful his notepad, is erstwhile helium archetypal gained an appreciation for the arts.

“He’s not without cynicism erstwhile you cognize him, but wherever comics truthful often pb with cynicism, helium has this wide-eyed openness, and I deliberation that’s a thread that pulls done each of his work,” says comedian and chap Comedy Central alum Sarah Silverman.

Demetri Martin’s archetypal solo creation accumulation is simply a collaboration with his wife, Rachael Beame Martin.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Now, Martin is simply a begetter to an 8-year-old girl and 11-year-old lad — the aforesaid property helium was erstwhile manning his Greek family’s shish kebab basal connected the Jersey Shore. His self-described choler astatine seeing the satellite his kids are increasing up in, namely their peers’ obsessions with compartment phones, seeps into his paintings and drawings. But ultimately, being a begetter has irrevocably improved Martin’s position connected life.

“I deliberation sometimes resignation is besides acceptance,” helium says, connected his caller appreciation of midlife. “You’re inactive motivated, but possibly not successful the aforesaid way. … You inactive privation to marque things, but possibly it doesn’t substance arsenic much, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. So that’s wherever I consciousness similar I’m at, wherever I’m saying, ‘You cognize what, I’m grateful.’ I recognize however fortunate I’ve been now.”

He’s not rather done with touring but “Acute Angles” represents a imaginable escape. If his drama tin question without him, if helium tin marque wealth portion foregoing lonely nights connected the road, helium tin prioritize much important moments, similar playing drawback with his lad aft school. After all, his kids aren’t astatine the property yet wherever they hatred him — a gag his kids don’t like.

Still, Martin’s art-making mirrors his joke-writing. It’s a numbers game, meticulously filling notebooks successful handwriting Silverman describes arsenic “tiny letters each perfectly the aforesaid size,” past revisiting and sharpening worldly until the gag emerges, similar a vision.

“It’s truly a privilege to person the benignant of vocation wherever I tin effort thing similar this,” Martin says. “I don’t instrumentality that for granted anymore.”