DEWSBURY ARTS GROUP ANNUAL SUMMER EXHIBITION 2010
Dewsbury Town Hall - 109th July to 17th July (Excluding Sunday)
OPEN from 11.00 am to 4.00 pm
ADMISSION FREE

David Martin attended Batley Grammar School followed by a four year course in Interior and Exhibition Design at DABTAC.

"I have always loved drawing and painting and spent many hours as a boy sketching anything and anybody I came across. This resulted in a lifelong interest in landscape and architecture. At school I was awarded the 'O' Level Art Prize and spent the cash on various books on art and painters, including one of J.M.W. Turner. This book changed my life and he has been my hero every since. I had my first solo exhibition at Crow Nest Mansion in 1971. My passion for painting, however, took a back seat to my family and career in the 70's and 80's but, having gone freelance in 1990, I have been able to revive my interest. Following an illness I have become more involved in painting once again and am currently developing my own Studio/Gallery at my home in Thornhill. I work mainly from 'plein air' watercolour sketches, colour notes and reference photographs and usually produce the finished oil or watercolour painting in the studio. I enjoy painting the Yorkshire Coast and Yorkshire Dales, but I also gain a lot of pleasure and knowledge from producing accurate reproductions of works by the painters I admire - Turner, Van Gogh, Monet, Corot - but I have to be really passionate about a painting in order to expend the time and energy on such an undertaking."
Further solo exhibitions: Redbrick Mill, Batley; Oakewell Hall, Birstall. An exhibiting member of Dewsbury Arts Group since 1990. Works in many local exhibitions and in gallery/shops. Works in private collections in Europe, North America, India, Australia and Japan; commissions completed for private, corporate and public collections. Recently commissioned to produce a portrait of the Dewsbury swimmer, Eileen Fenton, for Dewsbury Museum. Produced a cover painting for the British Mensa Magazine. Set design work done for Batley Gilbert and Sullivan Society and Dewsbury Arts Group ("Translations", "Death of a Salesman", "Kafka's Dick"). Paintings and prints done for major charities - Dewsbury Minster Appeal, Batley Rotary Club, The Prince's Trust.
Additional hobbies: playing the guitar and researching a book about the North/South divide.


AN APPRECIATION OF DAVID MARTIN, written by DAVID WOOD
David Martin is an unassuming man and a discerning painter with a fine eye for composition, strong skills in handling colour in a variety of media and a sure hand at drawing. Essentially he trained as a designer and his development as a painter is largely through his own efforts and his longstanding interest in both landscape and architecture. More important still is his admiration of the work of the great English painter J.M.W. Turner, an admiration which led David to embark on painting accurate reproductions of Turner's work. One tends to forget that the copying of masterpieces was for a great many years regarded as a necessary part of developing as a painter. Part of this work has even included his combining the ideas of established artists into a new piece of work.
David prefers working in oil or watercolour rather than acrylic or gouache, he has more affinity with these media: painting in oil enables him to go back and repaint areas, which he sometimes does a while after its initial 'completion'; watercolour on the other hand needs his good eye and deft immediacy.
There is a real affinity for Yorkshire in his landscape work and a particular fondness for the East Coast. Using a soft, muted, warm palette David captures the specific attraction of the Yorkshire coast and its 'light'. Frequently using a deep foreground in his work he leads the viewer's eye gently into the welcoming and often familiar, landscape beyond. This 'leading into' with his compositions sometimes employs the use of steps, or a subtle pathway.
His assured use of watercolour enables the creation of harmonious compositions, achieved deftly and with a freshness and enthusiasm. You feel the fondness the artist has for his subject. Similarly in his architectural pieces you can share his admiration for the majestic quality of so many of our local Victorian buildings. David has commented he would like to paint a typically Canaletto scene - but instead of Venetian palaces along the canal he would paint local Dewsbury facades - they would be equally acceptable and impressive. It sound like a project worth seeing. David Martin has a wealth of ideas and a tremendous amount of ability: his range of work is broad and his devotion to his work sincere. Turner spoke very little about his work and less still about the work of others, but he is on record as commenting that painting in general was "a rum thing". David Martin's work has a genuine spirit - could that be the same? David Wood