And a few remarks on some of the paintings……
THOSE LONELY ROADS: When in Ireland, I like to go up to the wild and empty Dublin and Wicklow mountains. Lonesome, winding, windy, high and meandering boreens (little roads).
Nowadays, the Military Road from Dublin to Wicklow, built in the early 1800s and windswept every day since, is mostly frequented by sheep. But up there, solitary but for sheep and crows, I can almost hear the echoes of weary marching under heavy low skies. Soggy soldiers, glum and taunted by rain and rebels, trudging their wintry way to the barracks at Glencree or distant Aughavannagh.
My ‘Mountain Series’ paintings below, all from May/June 2026, are in spring and summer. So only threatening to rain most of the time, rather than raining all of of the time.
Mountain series (2026. Acrylic on card. Various sizes).
Woman in the Green Coat: Around 2022, I saw a woman waiting at Schuman metro station in Brussels. I was struck by the brilliance of her emerald coat and golden hair. Inspiration in the everyday. So when I went home, I painted the memory.
ATHENS: I have spent much time during my adult life in Greece, for work and holidays. Mostly in the roiling, roaring, heaving city of Athens. Huge and almost overwhelming, but passionately human.
Buildings in Athens almost jostle each other. One painting in this Greece set below imagines the stately Old Athens being overlooked by a looming boisterous newer Athens.
And yet, despite all the cement and the heat and the noise, the art and the fruit and the music and the colours and the people persist, and resist. And insist on the essential humanity of this great metropolis. That’s the notion that the paintings of Drosopoulou Street and Athens Hills are trying to carry….am I inferring too much?
Incidentally, the classical building is the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. That was a practice sketch I did early last Christmas morning in Athens while everyone was sleeping.
From Athens, you go to Piraeus and a ferry or Flying Dolphin (or Swimming Bird or whatever its called) will take you to the bustling port of Aegina island. That green taverna there in the pictures below is a wonderful old spot that sits in the port, and never changes.
There’s also a painting of the household bins. Who paints bins? Well, I did. I painted them one year when the overflowing bins were overly prominent in island life. Because for some reason, they were just not being collected……All is grand now, happily.
And what’s that one of the boat approaching an island? I expect it has a cargo of tourists. I was imaging the idea of balance, and wondering will this be the one that finally tips the island over into the sea?
The man dancing? Well – its not going to be a prize-winning painting, but it captures a spirit of passionate indifference (and I like how the cups turned out).
I have also included an image that is more of a sketch than a developed painting – of a young woman on an Athens street waiting, presumably to be collected by a lover, a friend, a family. I liked the translucence. It suggested…….. actually, I’ll stop here, as I am tipping over into talking nonsense, an occupational hazard. I just liked the image and found it kindled my mind.
DOUBLE-TAKE DIVERSION: This painting here is simply called ‘Mother and Child’.
However, everyone sees the mother and almost nobody sees the child. Until it is explained to them.
See the little curve at the chest? View that as a toddler’s bottom, poking out of trousers that are slipping down. And his arms are around Mammy’s neck. And his head is obscuring her face.
See it now?
HELSINKI: I spent a year in Helsinki around 2019/20, and it was then I started painting in earnest. One of the first images to emerge was this fellow, my ‘Cold fish’. Fitting indeed, given the bone-crushing chills of the Baltic Sea winds on the coast those winter nights. ‘Cold fish’ was the first painting I ever sold.
The bitter sea winds were, however, more than balanced out by the many warm people I met in Helsinki. Alvin, Tom, Mari, Anu, Satu, Nick, and many more I miss still. The second painting below is ‘Helsinki Church’, a painting inspired by the Mikael Agrikola church, named after the man who, amongst many other things, brought about the first Finnish edition of the Bible. I stand to be corrected, but that’s how I remember it at time of writing.
‘Cold fish’ (2020). SOLD. Helsinki church (2020). Acrylic on card.
CITIES: Lately I have been painting scenes of the land. But in fact when I first look at the big white blank sheet in front of me, I often imagine cityscapes.
A great city should be crowded and lively, and almost annoying. The cityscapes in the cluster below came from my head, not modelled on anywhere.
Yet, I fancy one (bottom-left) suggest a shadow of Edinburgh in the days of Burke and Hare? Its one of my favourites, but before I knew it would be, a chap from Italy who lives in Brussels bought it from me. I was thrilled at the time. Thinks me: ‘So the first sale was not a fluke!’ He bought it. He took it. I miss it. If I could find him I would probably buy it back.
Clearly, whatever about me reaching some level of aesthetic achievement, my reluctance to sell will be an obstacle to reaching an equivalent such level commercially.
The red painting bottom-right, which I never really named, might have a flavour of Ennistymon, a picturesque town in the west of Ireland. A Chinese man bought it at the RDS ArtSource art show in 2023. I think he was a visitor. So, who knows, perhaps that piece now hangs in China? A curiosity is that I had painted it on a piece of wood I found in the street in Brussels. The wood seemed to be the panel backing for an antique mirror, and written on the back was a hand-scrawled message in pen, simply ‘Martin, 1913’. Given the year, its hard not to wonder who that was and what became of him.
The third painting. Well, someone has said it was the spit of Bergen in Norway. Never saw the place, but I doubt it. Well, that painting now lives in Warsaw, Poland. It caught the eye of someone while I had it on display in a little stall I had in the Blackrock market back in 2023. I had painted that scene on a big heavy long slab of wood, so it definitely did not fly to Poland in the suitcase.
Anyway, overall, a well-travelled batch.
From top, clockwise: Port town, River town, Old Town (2021-22)
Left: Brussels tram.
