Martin Davis Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Martin began his art career in 2008. Painting mainly in oils and acrylic he is currently focused on still life but his output includes landscape & urban scenes and more figurative/abstract work, even portraiture. Whatever the genre he uses realism in his trademark painterly style. He works from his home studio and has secured gallery space around the country including the Royal Academy
Much of my practice – I work largely in the mediums of oil and acrylic paint – is a response to visual triggers I see in the world around me, in current affairs, in my physical surroundings and even in the written word.
My natural curiosity about how we see what we see provides a sub-text to what I do in my work and I am inspired by the tension of contrasts; contrasts of light, of colour or texture and the effects this has on form. During the process of applying paint I focus especially on the idea of boundaries or edges and the ends of things – and in those often fleeting boundaries that define and demarcate what we see I explore the possibilities of representation and visualization, often of the apparently mundane and everyday.
I love the unexpected or the effect of events outside of my control on my subconscious. I never know if or how or why such external triggers may effect a response through my work. But I am interested in the linkages present through such influences and the traces they can leave through the narratives that are often there in my art. I try to use my sense of colour and love of form to raise the spirits. One of my abiding hopes is that, like music, art can serve to engender a greater sense of wellbeing – in observer and creator alike. I believe art at its best can be a simple, joyful experience as well as a vehicle for asking more difficult & fundamental questions about what it is to be human.
