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Painting for me acts as a pressure release valve and I feel fortunate to enjoy it thoroughly while making a living at it. To do so, I find it requires regularly striving for freedom from my own expectations. This helps me to keep my mind open and my work fresh. While evolution as an artist is continual, certain aspects of my process remain unchanged. Toning the canvas with a wash of color is a simple technique I was taught in school and, more than a decade later, this has become one of the most important stages in the process of my work. |
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Julia Martin
Painting for me acts as a pressure release valve and I feel fortunate to enjoy it thoroughly while making a living at it. To do so, I find it requires regularly striving for freedom from my own expectations. This helps me to keep my mind open and my work fresh.
While evolution as an artist is continual, certain aspects of my process remain unchanged. Toning the canvas with a wash of color is a simple technique I was taught in school and, more than a decade later, this has become one of the most important stages in the process of my work. After priming the surface with a loose wash, the silhouette of a figure or the suggestion of a scene often presents itself. Sometimes the image appears so blatantly that it feels like magic, almost like cheating. Rather, it is the product of a vivid imagination, a liberal education and exposure to the work of great artists such as Egon Schiele, Stuart Davis, Man Ray, Darren Waterston and Joe Sorren.
Although I would like to say that all of my work is born of magical images that appear in my turpentine, that is not the case. In the past I’ve based shows entirely on a book found at a yard sale or an old magazine from an antique store. More recently, a series was solely inspired by the documentary Grey Gardens. You never know what will grab you. For that reason, it is equally as important to spend time roving through antique stores as it is diligently working in my studio.
