Martin Smith offers exhibition at Chichester’s Oxmarket
Choosing to Paint offers an exhibition from Martin Smith running at Chichester’s Oxmarket Contemporary from February 28-March 18.
Martin, who lives in Chichester, said: “This show is unmistakably about colour. The viewer first finds upliftingly multi-coloured abstracts built on a European constructivist heritage. The compositions are refreshingly taut and unequivocally decisive but far from static. The repetitions of forms invoke a sense of movement and the connective colour relationships echo musical progressions.
“However there is more going on here. In the Wrapped series the same colour takes on different roles: here a solid feature and there an atmospheric space. Intermediate states are achieved where solid colour passes over another form and reveals its own transparency, elsewhere paint becomes a film sitting on the work’s picture plane as in cubist collages. There are other references to be found in this language, to Cezanne’s Annecy and Mont St. Victoire works for example. These compositions present a finely attenuated balance while avoiding the banality of symmetry, grounded as they are in landscape.
“Abstraction permits an escape from the functional prosaic use of images and vision (describing what objects look like, identifying people, navigating spaces, reading T&CS etc) and into the poetic. It encourages more innovative composition of visual elements.
“The arrival of abstraction coincided with the detachment from patronage in the 19th century achieved by the French Impressionists and their plein-air predecessors who included Turner and Constable. The studio works showing here are borne out of the compulsion in the artist to provide a unique experience for the viewer, something that looks different, perhaps fresh, the initial viewer being the artist.
“What is exhibited is entirely original and the works as a whole offer a refreshing visual experience. Uniqueness is vital, because art has a responsibility to take us beyond the observation of nature and beyond previous experience, and, hopefully, beyond the banal.”
“Collaborative works interest me because clients lead you to occupy territories other than your personal line of inquiry. You can be taken out of your discomfort zone of serious contention and it is refreshing and In certain ways more fun! It is always a pleasure to delight others, and the collaboration should ensure that follows.
"People hunt for years to find a work that fits appropriately in their homes, and sometimes miscalculate. The cultural shift toward use of visual communication on screens has meant that most contact time and exposure to the man-made visual field is prosaic rather than poetic. It seems more important than ever before to make available considered static images that are not ephemeral and offer reward for sustained attention.
"Essentially I want viewers of my work to enjoy an organised visual field.”