To some money is everything, to others, nothing. We are in the 21st Century and there are probably only a few small pockets of the global population for whom money has no influence. With that in mind, we might say that those people are the only ones who are truly free to live life freely, uninfluenced.
In 2012, I made a painting called “Put Your Cards On The Table”. It was to be the first in what has become a body of work exploring the control money has on different people the world over. My work explores the role money plays in various fractions of life, such as the economy, conflict, religion or personality.
Though my work is most commonly associated with the label ‘Hyperrealism’, I prefer not to think of it as such. I make paintings, which to me express my interaction with the world. My aim is to make my paintings resemble life and reality, not photography. For those reasons my world is now absent of the restraints photography possesses, such as distortion, blurring or over exposure. In order to achieve this, my paintings are made with reference to multiple sources, drawing together a mass of information that can be used or discarded where necessary. I want the viewer to feel they can enter the painting and move around it. In parts I aim for the subject to appear as though it projects further than the plane of the canvas, to have a presence, putting the viewer somewhere in the physical experience of the painting.
Until now, the work I have exhibited has been solely on the 2D plane with zero texture, but really that only represents a fraction of my persona. I am by nature, a maker, builder and a creator. When I am not in the studio painting, you will most likely find me making something else. I want my work to echo that. For the first time, this November I will exhibit not only paintings, but also several sculptures and framed wall hung relief pieces. Primarily made through the process of casting, these plaster pieces are very simple in material terms. Drained of any colour, focus falls on their form, detail and intricacy.
Tom Martin 2014
