Born in Cornwall, the sea has always been a major inspiration. After formal education Martin joined the merchant Navy and sailed the Pacific and Atlantic. From on board ship he applied to the Slade School of Fine Art with drawings from his voyages and was accepted. He specialised in Printmaking and went onto a postgraduate course at the Central School,of Art from where he started teaching Lithography at the School.
This was followed by a year teaching at the University of Wisconsin USA and on returning he founded and set up a Fine Art Lithography Workshop, Ashby Studios printing artists Lithographs.
His interest in Japanese Art has led him to develop skills in woodcuts and linocuts. The work explores the forms and rhythms of the natural world. Starting with drawings and photographs the work goes through a process of distilling and simplifying the complexities to find a more abstract and expressive graphic equivalent. He is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between positive and negative mark making and also the borderline between the figurative and the abstract.
His latest paintings are Still Lives based on observation. For him this is the most exciting and intense experience. Observing the subject, he tries to capture the essence without preconceptions. Sustained looking and drawing with paint is the most wonderful adventure. Once you apply brushwork with colour of right intensity, value and hue and it locks into the rest of the painting, the result is magical, creating space and giving the painting a life of it’s own.
Martin has exhibited at the Affordable Art Fair, RA Summer Exhibition, Stedlijk Museum, Zillah Bell gallery and the Freud Museum. His work is in a number of private and public collections in the UK and abroad including the Victoria and Albert Museum.
