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Christopher Martin
I remember my early days of painting as exciting and a time of free creation; the curiosity I felt the joy of realizing a finished piece. The outcome didn’t matter. I didn’t care what people thought. No one relied on the piece being good or not.
The reward then, and still is today, is to finish a piece that moves me, or a piece that confronts me. I want to feel something as a viewer, as opposed to an artist. Once I experienced that feeling, my paintings became a very important part of my life.
Life brings me inspiration; my relationship with the people in my life, history, places, animals, weather, plants, filling a gallery with paintings and at times, my own paintings inspire me. Back in 1991, as an owner of a tropical fish store in Florida, I painted the windows of the store with reef scenes. Something in the feel of the brush, the paint, and the glass made me feel like I’d grabbed a key to something very important to my life. It wasn’t about painting the fish. It was more serious. I sensed something in the connection of paint and glass. It is so different from the feel of the paint on canvas. I began experimenting with painted broken glass, shattered, but bound by the paint. This led to curiosities about the possibilities of the medium. Ten years later, my work has evolved into vibrant acrylic on acrylic pieces that glow with iridescent and metallic highlights. My painting process, described as reverse glass painting, is like a chess game – thinking four or five moves ahead to avoid literally painting myself and the piece into a corner. The simplicity of my pieces belies a complex underpinning of thought and technique.
My favorite times during the painting process are the beginning and the end of a piece, and then again when if finds a home.
