Artists' Biography
& Gallery Links
Surfing is like painting, once you start to do it
you have to pursue it relentlessly. It becomes an obsession. This
is certainly the case with Paddy Martin who first started to paint
seriously whilst studying art at Portsmouth School of Art Design
and Media. By the time he graduated in 1998 he had been involved
in 3 group exhibitions, a solo show at the Watershed Arts Centre
in Bognor Regis and a piece in the prestigious Moore and Blatch
Student Prize exhibition at the Southampton City Gallery. He then
went on to coordinate the visual arts at Southwark Arts Festival
in central London, where he curated exhibitions and organised
artist workshops in venues such as Guys Hospital.
It was around this time that Paddy discovered surfing and his
painting concerns would never be the same. From early work that
was concerned very much with our relationships with contemporary
media attitudes and was very much a reflection of the Britart
buzz of the late nineties, Paddy moved to concerns of light and
water and trying to capture the feelings of “the glide”.
His current work follows two main strands. On the one hand the
very obvious dynamism of riding waves, with paint applied to canvas
with the passion that is spawned by long hours of watching water
explode at close quarters. On the other hand there are the underwater
scenes, where fleeting encounters with fish and whales caught
in tunnels of light are captured with a feeling of total isolation
in an underwater landscape. From dynamism to solitude the paintings
all hold a passion for the sea and its ever changing light and
moods.
He is currently painting from his studio by the sea in South Hampshire.
His paintings are at present being exhibited at:
The Brownstone Gallery in Modbury, Devon
The
Green Gallery in the St Stephens Green Centre in Dublin, one of
Ireland’s most successful commercial Galleries.
Studio 18 in St Hellier
on Jersey.
The Driftwood Gallery,
Newquay, specialising in surf art.
The Driftwood Gallery,
Ilfracombe, situated right on the quay in this beautiful fishing
village.
The Emanuel Gallery
in the famous Fore St of St Ives Cornwall.
Pacific Surf Gallery
in Cardiff by the Sea near San Diego in California
The
Biscuit Factory, Europe’s largest commercial gallery in
Newcastle upon Tyne.
Chase Arts in Wadebridge,
Cornwall
Atishoo
Designs in the picturesque fishing village of Charlestown in Cornwall
Small
Planet Surf Shop in Brighton
Wittering Surf Shop
in West Sussex
