Biography
British painter and mixed media artist Ruthie Martin is the Artist-in-Residence at the Railway Land Wildlife trust, Lewes, East Sussex. After studying Abstraction in Painting with Tricia Gillman at Central Saint Martins from September 2017 to June 2018, she studied for a BA degree in Fine Art from the University of East London, graduating in 2021 with First Class Honours. She was also awarded the Curriculum Art Prize from Kensington and Chelsea College, London in the same year.
Her work is inspired both by the landscape of the South Downs National Park and by considerations of the shifting relationships between human and more-than-human natural worlds. Her mainly abstract paintings spring from close observation of the forms, trails and textures of the local environment, embodying her physical experience of temperature and movement. Martin uses both dry and water-based media, including gouache and acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and water-soluble crayon. Her work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in London, Lewes, Brighton and Cambridge.
Statement
My work is animated by the theme of wildness. Abstract artworks materialise as sites of connection between what is seen and what is felt - between the physical landscape and human fields of thought and feeling. Beginning en plein air, working directly from the natural scenery and tuning into my surroundings with all my senses, I capture the intensity of inexorable growth through the feeling of being close-up and present in the pictorial space of a painting. Loose, gestural brushwork combined with spontaneous mark making on paper enables embodiment of the energetic tangle of toughness with delicacy in burgeoning nature.
It is a non-representational interpretation. Instead, my process mirrors the way our memories present to us not a definitive version of reality but an approximate interpretation triggering the replication of emotional response. Subsequent studio development involves combining gentle and robust paint layers blended with drawing for a textured surface. I aim to consolidate the elements while retaining a sense of spirited immediacy. Most importantly throughout, intuitive composition is given specificity through referencing a library of marks, lines, shapes and colours observed in actuality. This encourages emotional connection with the natural scene through the work.
Past Gallery Exhibitions
Solo exhibition at The Linklater Pavilion, Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Lewes, East Sussex. 8-9th June 2024
Group exhibition This is Elsewhere, Morley Gallery, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London. 5-11 September 2023
Solo exhibition In the Kingdom of Daylight, The Blue Room Gallery, Lewes High Street Lewes, UK. 27th August, until 18th September 2022
Group show Morley Gallery, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London. 7-11 September 2022
Group show Michaelhouse Café, Cambridge. 13 - 26 June, 2022
BA Fine Art Degree Show University of East London at Morley College, Chelsea. June 2021.
Wells Art Contemporary 2020 Wells Cathedral, Wells
Readymades Hortensia Gallery, Chelsea, London, November 2019. Paintings and wire sculpture.
Above the ballet school Hortensia Gallery, Chelsea, London, June 2019. Paintings and video.
Artwave Festival 2019 The Blue Room Gallery, Lewes High Street, Lewes, UK. August-September. Paintings and screen prints.
Artwave Festival 2017 House of Friendship Gallery, 208 Lewes High Street, Lewes, UK. August-September. Screen prints and photography.
Present and Connect: Contemporary Landscape Impressions Horsham Art Gallery, West Sussex. UK. November 2014 until January 2015. Screen prints and black and white photography.