Martin Dutton SWAc

Martin has been compulsively making pictures for sixty three years now, and his zeal is unabated! His work is multifaceted and he is interested in many aspects of the creation of visual images.

Over the years this diversity of ideas and subject matter has resolved itself into the identification of different "themes" in his working process - different starting points, different final aims. Martin works on an individual theme for as long as the creative flow is alive or until the activity is interrupted by life’s events and personal circumstances. After the interruption he will often return to a previous theme which will, in turn, follow it’s own unpredictable time scale.

His earlier representational paintings have, since his wife died, become more subjectively abstract recalling the wonderful experiences they had.

The oil pastels, form part of his "In-situ painting" theme which has continued throughout his painting life. Most of his work outdoors is done in oils, with the use of pastels a fairly recent indulgence. Working in the landscape trying to capture the essential visual and sensory aspects of the subject within the timescale and physical demands of in-situ work, has a particular appeal to him.

The flower paintings come from a theme some years ago when his wife liked to fill Yorkshire chimney pots with burgeoning blooms of flowers, he loved to paint them and she used the paintings as house decoration! A happy joint enterprise.Other themes include intuitive abstract painting which is a development from Martin's "Linear Abstracts" which was a dominant aspect of his work when they lived in Yorkshire.

Martin has been an elected member of the South West Academy for a number of years, is a recently retired President of Teignmouth Art Society, and Vice- President of Devon Art Society. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and has work in collections in the UK and abroad.