ARTIST’S STATEMENT

The urban environment as a constructed landscape and the figure are the main themes of my art. The movement of shadows on buildings, city streets and telegraph poles, the last rays of sun on a car in a suburban backyard are all observed with sometimes voyeuristic detachment. It’s an impersonal landscape and populated by anonymous characters enacting their lives almost invisibly in a setting that many regard as ugly or mundane.

My paintings are rapidly executed, and brought to completion usually in a single session. The process involves covering the surface completely with paint and then working into that to liberate the image. Paint is applied thickly and energetically, correction is minimal as the intention is to create a feeling of improvisation and urgency through the expressive movement of pigment. The white border resulting from the paintings being taped to a board during the painting process tightly crops the images and gives them a snapshot like appearance.

My influences include the expressionist painters Leon Kossoff and Emile Nolde.

Martin McEwen