Julian Martin

Last updated

Julian Martin in September 2015 Julian Martin.jpg
Julian Martin in September 2015

Julian Martin (born Melbourne 1969) is an Australian artist, known primarily for his pastel drawings and self-portraits. Martin resides in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster, and has worked from his Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 1989, where he has also had numerous solo shows. He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally [see Exhibitions] and in 1994 he was a finalist in the Moët & Chandon Travelling Fellowship. In 2014 he was the winner of the Australian State Trustees Connected art prize. His work is held in several public collections, including the Deakin University Art Collection, the City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection and Monash University Museum of Art.

Contents

Early life and education

Martin was diagnosed with autism at the age of two and was supported and encouraged by his parents, who claimed that his diagnosis had 'cemented' their family and that he showed signs of 'promise'. [1] He attended a program for special-needs children, but did not start making art until approximately the age of ten. During his time at an autism-specific school, which he attended for several years, he "won a minor art prize", [2] however the early promise identified by his parents was not realised until 1989, when an instructor at the Adult Day Centre at which Martin attended recognised his artistic talent. [3] Shortly thereafter he began working at Arts Project Australia, an organisation devoted to supporting and promoting artists with an intellectual disability. Although Martin received no formal training, his participation in the studio program at Arts Project Australia gave him access to fine art materials and the informal tuition provided by the practising artists employed by the organisation. It was one such artist who, in the early 1990s, suggested the use of a mirror as a drawing aid, which eventually led to the development of his signature depictions of mask-like faces executed in pastel. [4] These early works were exhibited in Martin's first solo show, entitled Pastel Drawings at the Australian Galleries in Collingwood, Melbourne.

Career, themes and style

Both Martin's lack of formal training and autism have identified him as one of the key figures within the outsider art category in Australia. This categorisation is confirmed by his repeated inclusion in Outsider Art exhibitions and fairs, both in Australia and in the USA. However, in recent years his work has also achieved success in more conventional art institutions and Alex Baker, former curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria has likened his works to those of American abstract artists of the 1930s and 1940s such as Adolph Gottlieb, William Baziotes and Ad Reinhardt, claiming that they are similarly characterised by "pictographic, biomorphic and hard-edged abstraction". [5]

A highly prolific artist [2] whose works number in the hundreds and are stored in the archival collection of Arts Project Australia, [6] Martin's work has developed from early abstracted monochrome figures and profiles [4] into a practice which combines source material found in newspapers and magazines [2] with the bold, flattened geometric repetition of form that has become his "signature style". [4] Recent works are drawn from mainly photographic and physical sources ranging from depictions of Hollywood celebrities, politicians and sports stars to an eclectic range of kitchen utensils, tools, letters and logos. The expansion of subject matter in recent work has been accompanied with a more textural and layered use of the familiar pastel medium – Baker notes the use of etching implements to create works which are "abraded, scoured and pitted", [5] stating that they stand as "testimony to the artist's vigorous process". [5]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

Publications

Julian Martin: Transformer, exhibition catalogue, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 2014. ISBN   9780958665919

Collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Gallery of Victoria</span> Art museum in Melbourne, Australia

The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Craig-Martin</span> Irish contemporary conceptual artist and painter

Sir Michael Craig-Martin is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is an emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philadelphia Wireman</span> Unidentified outsider artist

The Philadelphia Wireman is the working name given to an unknown outsider artist responsible for approximately 1,200 small-scale wire-frame sculptures that were found by a passerby, abandoned on a street outside a transient home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1982. The artist is assumed to have access to the tools required to bend some of the heavy-gauge wire in the sculptures; it is hypothesised that the sculptures were abandoned after their creator's death. Nothing is known about the artist's motives. Many of the pieces resemble African art, and this plus the demographics of the neighborhood where the art collection was found have led some reviewers to speculate that the artist was African-American. In 1999, according to the Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, a gallery visitor correctly identified the street that the art was found on, and confirmed that he had seen an elderly black man making these sculptures circa 1970, but beyond that the artist has never been identified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Sansom</span>

Gareth Sansom is an Australian artist, painter, printmaker and collagist and winner of the 2008 John McCaughey Memorial Prize of $100,000.

Isobel Rae was an Australian-born impressionist painter who lived and worked most of her life in Europe.

Jeffrey Thomas Makin is an Australian artist, art critic, and director of Port Jackson Press Australia. He is best known for his paintings en plein air of the Australian landscape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Aline Rodway</span> Australian artist (1881–1971)

Florence Aline Rodway was an Australian artist best known for her portraits. Born in the Tasmanian city of Hobart, she was the second of six children to Leonard Rodway and Louisa Susan, née Phillips. She studied painting at the Hobart Technical College ; after two years her work was sent to London, and she was awarded a three-year scholarship to study painting at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. She is best known for having painted portraits of notable figures in Australian history, including Dame Nellie Melba, William Bridges, J. F. Archibald and Henry Lawson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jina Valentine</span> American artist

Jina Valentine is a contemporary American visual artist whose work is informed by the techniques and strategies of American folk artists. She uses a variety of media to weave histories—including drawing, papermaking, found-object collage, and radical archiving.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts Project Australia</span> Non-profit organisation based in Australia

Arts Project Australia Inc. is a registered charity and non-profit organisation located in Northcote, an inner northern area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The organisation provides facilitation/mentoring, studio and exhibition spaces for artists with intellectual disabilities, and as such has been identified as a major centre for the promotion and exhibition of outsider art, or art that has been produced outside of the contemporary and historical mainstream. In 2016 there were approximately 130 artists attending the studio, with the work of exhibiting artists featuring alongside works from the broader contemporary art community in the annual rotating exhibition program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvaro Alvarez</span> Australian artist

Alvaro Alvarez, is an artist, working primarily as a painter. He is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Miles Howard-Wilks is an Australian artist. While working primarily as a painter, Howard-Wilks is also a ceramicist and animator and has worked in the Arts Project Australia studio since 2000. His diverse subject matter explores themes such as the Australian landscape, seascapes, and Australian Rules Football. With a fine attention to detail and a special interest in oceanic and environmental imagery, Howard-Wilks' works have been widely exhibited both Australia-wide and internationally. His works are held within many collections, most notably at the National Gallery of Australia and the Museum of Contemporary Art. He is viewed as an important figure in outsider art in Australia.

Patrick Francis is an Australian artist, athlete, and author. He is best known for his colourful depictions of contemporary Melbourne life and as the co-founder of Absolutely Awetistic Arts. His work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of NSW and Artbank, and has been included in major exhibitions. He has been a studio artist at Arts Project Australia since 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Constable</span> Australian artist

Alan Constable is an Australian artist well known for his ceramic sculptural depictions of photographic cameras. Constable has worked principally from his Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 1991, gaining critical success as a multi-disciplinary artist proficient in a wide diversity of media including pastel, gouache, paint and ceramics. He has been working on his series of ceramic cameras since 2007 and works from this series were represented at the 2009 Australian Ceramic Triennale in Sydney and featured in a solo exhibition of his work, Clay Cameras, at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. Thirteen works from this series were acquired for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in 2014, and appeared in their blockbuster exhibition of contemporary art, Melbourne Now, in the same year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valerio Ciccone</span> Australian artist

Valerio Ciccone is an Australian artist who is best known for his drawings of mass-media events and icons taken from popular culture. He has worked from his Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 1984, where he has also had numerous solo shows. He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally [see Exhibitions] and his work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Trinkhall Museum, Liège, and the National Sports Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Mason (artist)</span> Australian artist, born 1976

Chris Mason is an Australian artist. Mason resides in Melbourne. His work is held in several public collections, including those of the National Gallery of Australia and the State Library of Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Reid</span> Australian artist

Lisa Reid is an Australian artist, known primarily for her highly detailed figurative works in a variety of mediums. Reid has worked from her Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 2000, where she held her first solo show in 2015. She has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally and her work was recently selected for the landmark exhibition Painting. More Painting, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Her work is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Berry</span> Australian female artist (born 1942)

Dorothy Berry is an Australian artist working in the genres of Outsider art, and Art Brut, based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is known primarily for her densely composed depictions of animals and birdlife, executed in pastel. Berry resides in the Melbourne suburb of Kingsbury and has worked from her Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 1985. Berry's work has been represented in four solo exhibitions, and has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally in group shows, including ‘My Puppet, My Secret Self’, at the Substation, Newport; ‘Inside Out/Outside In’, Access Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and ‘Turning the Page’, Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and MADMusée, Liège, Belgium, and the Centre for Australian Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Lynch (artist)</span>

Anne Lynch is an Australian artist, working primarily as a draftsperson and printmaker in the genre of Outsider art. Her artwork has been shown internationally and is represented in the Self-Taught and Outsider Art Research Collection at the Callan Park Gallery for Self-Taught and Outsider Art, University of Sydney. Since 1995, Lynch has been a dedicated studio artist at Arts Project Australia in Northcote, an organization that supports the creativity and artwork of artists with an intellectual disability. Lynch's figurative pastel works evoke a sense of isolation and melancholy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Plate</span> Australian painter

Carl Olaf Plate was a prominent Australian modernist painter and collage artist.

Jennifer Herd is an Australian Indigenous artist with family ties to the Mbar-barrum people of North Queensland. She is a founding member of the ProppaNOW artist collective, and taught at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, where she convened both the Bachelor of Fine Art and Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art. In 2003 she won the Queensland College of Art Graduate Students prize, the Theiss Art Prize, for her Masters of Visual Arts.

References

  1. Thomas, Helen (12 February 1979). "He's a Little Boy Lost in a World of His Own". The Age .
  2. 1 2 3 Gómez, Edward M. (Winter 2014–2015). "Bold Essays in Colour and Form". Raw Vision 84.
  3. Daye, Cheryl. "Draw: A profile of Julian Martin". Julian Artist.
  4. 1 2 3 Roff, S. (August 2015). "Julian Martin: Abstracting the Shape". Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences . 24 (5): 376–8. doi: 10.1017/S2045796015000499 . PMC   8367358 . PMID   26237539.
  5. 1 2 3 Baker, Alex (2014). Julian Martin's Abstraction with a Lower-Case 'a'. Melbourne, Australia: Arts Project Australia. ISBN   9780958665919.
  6. Lester, Libby (23 May 1997). "Art of Communication". The Age .