After a gap of 6 years, we are very pleased to welcome Martyn back to Ffin y Parc. This show of new and recent work is made up of small watercolour and pen-wash paintings, and larger works on canvas.
They are an imaginative response to the landscape, and especially the place where the natural world interacts with our more controlled domestic spaces. Everywhere, light and heat are pulsing. Mysteries lurk. There is a constant restless energy, even in moments of repose.
With his strong, saturated colours and striking contrasts, he conjours thoughts of lush tropical gardens tended by our own hands. Shapes from nature are borrowed, repeated and adapted: flowers and feathers, buds and blades, simplified to their essentials and elaborated. Fountains sparkle in the sun, and lights from the cars stud the darkness…
Throughout the work, he varies the texture of his brushwork and the sharpness of his lines. Sometimes colours move gently from one to another, at other times they pop and jangle, setting up rhythm and dialogue within the painting. Everything is deliberately placed and choreographed. The tension between Martyn's precision and the vibrant ebullience of the works, gives them real excitement and intrigue.
Martyn trained at the Chelsea School of Art. He lives and works in Cardiff. He exhibits his work internationally and is represented in many prestigious collections.