ART

I’m a mostly self-taught artist, but I have been guided by artistic parents growing up in Adelaide. My work consists of oil painting, printmaking and digital art. My father, John Martin, is a printmaker as well and I must admit I commandeer his printing press on a regular basis. 

My artwork represents a meditative and expressionistic interpretation of what captures my eye, primarily static scenes from the natural world; a landscape, a still life, or some tiny detail that I find fascinating. Each work is an attempt to unconsciously communicate my experience of a scene or object, rather than present the object as it really is. In that sense the works are intended as a small shared experience between myself and the viewer; allowing us to see the same world through different eyes. 

I employ intuitive mark-making and a sometimes hap-hazard colour selection system, seeking not to perfectly reproduce, to overwork, or refine any image - instead to keep traces of my process visible. Exaggerated shape, line, and colour are used to highlight the unique way I categorise contour and tone; what my eye favours and what it ignores. This provides a personal interpretation of my feeling when I’m focused in the moment, as well as how my hand executes that focus while physically creating the piece - treating it like a kind of organic translation process. 

There is rarely a message or conceptual meaning behind my work, I prefer to use this purely visual medium to convey a purely visual experience. As I share these artistic pursuits with writing and filmmaking I have plenty of other outlets to philosophise and communicate more complex audio-visual and linguistic ideas. Besides, sometimes it’s nice to just take a break and stare at something for a while.