George Martin

George Martin

Located at the verge of hyper-real figuration and colour field abstraction, Martin’s paintings enact the enigmatic drama of contemporary life. Like any other human being the artist too finds himself caught in situations and occurrences, which are highly coded with meanings. No gesture is an innocent gesture and no word is an innocent word in contemporary situations. Hence, each brush stroke aimed at the surface of the canvas is not innocent; it reveals and conceals, encodes and decodes at the same time.

George Martin’s paintings, though he is an acclaimed sculptor, interpret the highly coded drama of human life in urban situations. In more than one sense, Martin attempts and applies a deconstructive methodology in order to realize his paintings. The images in Martin’s paintings are doubly mediated; firstly by the mediation of a camera and secondly by a program that enables the artist to deconstruct the first image. The unity of the images are deconstructed to an extreme level, they start looking like colour patches. Here, as in the works of Roy Lichtenstein, Martin employs a technique that disintegrates and congregates the units of the original image.

The sense of unity, which becomes palpable from a distance and collapses as proximity progresses, seems to be under threat in Martin’s paintings. The comfort of viewing is allowed to the viewer only from a distance. Physical proximity with the work destroys the sense of unity and throws the viewer into a delirium, where the components fall apart. Perhaps, these works of Martin correspond to the sense of reality and unity as understood in the postmodern sense.

Interestingly, Martin captures the outer layers of urban spaces, which reflect the postmodern sense of reality. These postmodern architectural structures dispel the sense of unity from a closer distance though they show transparency and a feeling of progress, scientific achievement etc from a considerable distance. The enigma of the human drama begins where the sense of reality is displaced or destabilized from its own immediate surroundings. Martin’s works throb with the same sensibility, both as acceptance and critique.

Art historically speaking, Martin arrived at this language through his deliberations with the painterly language as practiced by his immediate predecessors and fellow artists. Perfection and unity were located at the achievement of Renaissance perspective. He wanted to break this sense of perfection and experiments towards this end brought him to a language, which is now identified as Martin’s signature style. The artist did his BFA in Trivandrum Fine Arts College and MFA in Government Art College, Kolkatta. His works are in prominent collections. A recipient of many awards Martin lives and works in New Delhi.