A talk by our print maker at CSAD, who’s also practising new and exciting artworks.
Tom’s artwork drastically changes after visiting New York – the geometry between buildings and the optical illusions created on the skyscrapers with lines and shapes.
Saw Frank Stella’s paintings and sculptures while he was there. Panels were multilayered and of offered an optical illusion type effect. Interesting combination of hand made and machine made – artist touch and not artist touch.
Yaacov Agan at Paris – not a fix static piece of work – Salon Agam 1972-4 – put the control of the piece in the viewer’s hands – composition kept changing as you moved around it.
Victor Varsarely – in Bath – Untitled Sculpture 1987 – shifting colours across the surface is actually totally smooth and flat, but looks 3D. Idea of depth is a trick of the eye.
Wanted to know how to make Varsarely’s black and white pieces – but made them in his own way, so it wasn’t a direct copy of them.
Tom Martin, After Yvaral, 2017 – a painting – flatness of colour is like printing, but he feels it’s nice to get away from printing for a while.
Tom M, Kinetic Relief, 2017 – cords interact with the pattern – crates a dazzling and shimmering effect.
As people used his drawing machine, the pieces on the discs sometimes became so dense, they became almost black.
Current work is from the discs he enjoyed making, called “Disc Series”, 2019. Next piece will be two moving discs on top of each other with transparent lines, creating a more Kinetic piece, which he’s previously enjoyed making too.
saratrouble 