Martin Davis, Swanwick, England
Member Since January 2010
Artist Statement Profile
I was born and brought up in a tough coal mining village in Derbyshire, UK in the 1950’s and 60’s and developed a love of painting and the visual arts from an early age. I was drawn towards painting & sketching as soon as I could grasp a brush or pencil, so producing images has been as natural to me as breathing.
However as expected of me I concentrated on other studies and at 18 I packed away my brushes & paint and went off to follow a conventional career in the usual way. After University in Birmingham, UK '73 to '76 I joined the fire & rescue service... which I finished 30+ yrs later in 2007.
A means of escapism from the straitened circumstances of my childhood art has since become a passion I have carried with me ever since, throughout the 1970’s as an undergraduate and on into adult life in my career in the emergency services.
I only turned seriously to painting from 2007 after I left the fire service and found the time to devote to it. Now I have much more time to paint I'm loving it. There is a feeling of immediacy, of life, of connectedness, with painting that I don't get from anything else..... anything at all. So I have to paint. My only regret is that I have neglected it for so long.
Work and inspiration
I am principally inspired by colour, and light & atmosphere.
I paint mainly in oils because I love the texture of the stuff. But I do experiment..... I never like to do the same thing twice.
I have a pretty eclectic kind of approach to subject matter. I don't really do "themes" at the moment but that doesn't matter so much anyway. The subject for me is mainly a carrier for something I'm trying to achieve at the time.
But what I paint has to move me. I need to be in thrall to it in some way. Exactly how that is I often don't know myself, but I always become aware of it as I'm working away.... and I'm all done when the feeling has worked itself out. It's a bit like being picked up and then gently put down again by something beyond my control ...but all the time feeling I’m on a dangerous edge.
It’s very exciting , no thrilling is a better word.
Above all what I get out of art is a kind of endless, compulsive challenge. When I get up from painting I feel an immediate compulsion to get straight back to it again. I take that as a healthy sign and I will always paint while I feel that way.
I have always felt that a piece of the artist goes into everything he/she creates, so I endeavour to make each artwork absolutely unique. Like most artists, I suspect in their heart of hearts, I don't paint primarily to sell, so prices for my work are always negotiable. My goal isn't really to sell art, although I am extremely happy when someone wants to acquire a piece, but my greatest hope is that my art will "touch" them personally, & leave a special and lasting impression.
Education
Although I am a self taught artist with no formal training beyond school I have painted all my adult life and found it a constant joy, there to relax with and help relieve the stresses of my work in the fire & rescue service.
I still consider myself a student practicing the art, probably I always will.
I am still looking to exhibit......but it's not why I paint, it never was. Painting for me just calms the soul. It's my private world. In 2010 I was shortlisted for the Art of Giving, National Art Competition at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
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