About my works - Aerial Topographical Paintings
My paintings have evolved over the years engaging and intriguing the public with images of cows on freeways and intimate views of the outback. Taking my inspiration from personal travel experience using the mundane and abstract to tell stories and send messages I have tried to create a unique style, beautiful and engaging.
Originally noted as a watercolourist, I still use the concepts and techniques of watercolour to bring life and energy to my works on canvas. My fascination with the colour of light has continued through all my works but can be best seen in my treatment of shadows and the colours I use to create them.
The layering techniques used to create my works are also from the watercolour influence where colours are not mixed – they are created. While some details are sharp and obvious it is often what is left out of the image that suggests the works true meanings. Some works reverberate with dry humour, using cows to set the scenes of great irony and wit.
The messages are many, the aesthetic is strong; each work requires time to allow you to become acquainted with its deeper meanings before it delivers its full power. Each work is constructed, formed and shaped to better tell its story; compositions are often challenging but always engaging. The colour harmonies evolve from hours and days of testing with many layers of transparent paint until the desired effect is achieved. The glow and light synonymous with the works on canvas owes a lot to the influence of renaissance art.
My paintings are created to make you think and imagine what it would be like to be ‘up there’ looking down. Silently elevated, you are lifted over the landscape to a bird’s eye view of the beautiful patchwork of colour texture and light. Familiar lines of a landscape disappear and are replaced with the pocked and scarred skin of the earth, craggy and beautiful.
I feel that I can tell the stories of our land best from the aerial perspective.
Pete Martin