Martin was born in Lancashire in 1946, but has spent most of his life in Cornwall, including his childhood. After studying Cybernetics at the University of Reading, and seven years as a logic engineer for International Computers Ltd (ICL), Martin returned to Cornwall to teach Physics. However, even at school as a science student, Martin’s art teacher encouraged him to develop his painting and this continued over the years culminating with an MA in Fine Art from Falmouth College of Art, awarded in 2000. Retiring from teaching in1999 to become a full-time artist, Martin has had solo shows in Cornwall and London, and has exhibited in a number of galleries in the UK.
Semi-abstracts based on the landscape of Predannack, on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, form the spine of Martin’s work. However over the last few years, time spent painting in Italy and Andalucia has expanded his subject areas, with digital techniques integrated into the process of making art, and with memory informing the work more directly.
Typically, a study painted in the landscape or life studio, will be combined in part or wholly with a photograph using Adobe Photoshop; this process stimulates new ideas and the form of a larger painting will emerge. As the larger painting itself develops, it is photographed, recombined digitally with its precursors, often taking on a life of its own to become something totally unexpected!