Will Martyr 'All I Think About' Print Available' Print Available

Artist: Will Martyr
Title: All I Think About
Medium: Diamond Dusted Spot Varnished 32 Color Screen Print
Size: 62 x 87.5 cm
Edition: 100
Price: £960

 

 Will Martyr, born 1980 in Eastbourne, UK, paints sun drenched daydreams that feel like screen-savers of memory. After the Slade School of Fine Art he spent a formative year at New York’s Studio School, absorbing Abstract Expressionist scale and urban architectural rhythms before returning to London to complete an MA at the Royal College of Art in 2007. Working in fast-drying acrylic, he masks hard edge colour blocks with frog tape, building up to eight translucent layers until swimming pool turquoises and tennis court lilacs glow with LED intensity.

Martyr calls himself a colourist first: every hue is premixed like printing ink, calibrated to trigger instant nostalgia. Early architectural panels have evolved into circular “tondo” canvases that function like portholes or lockets, framing poolside recliners, alpine ski slopes or empty sun lounges arranged like theatre sets. The human figure often his wife appears serene and unposed, a surrogate for the viewer’s own projections of leisure, love and quiet euphoria.

Exhibitions at Maddox Gallery (London & Gstaad), Unit London and Rarity Gallery have sold out rapidly, while corporate commissions fund continual experimentation; a 2006 print edition for Equity Insurance underwrote his mastery of Coriander Studio’s archival techniques. Public recognition includes the BMW Painting Prize nomination and inclusion in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Currently based in a 1920s propeller factory studio in Deptford, Martyr is preparing new sculptural works and large scale architectural paintings that translate his utopian palettes into three-dimensional space, ensuring the vacation never quite ends.