Hong Kong – British artist Jason Martin pushes the boundaries of paint beyond the two-dimensional. Working on large surfaces of aluminum, the artist moulds, scrapes and gouges oils to create turbulent, worked surfaces, where the paint gains an almost sculptural quality in thickness and weight.
Part of the YBA generation, Martin is the first western artist to be shown at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong since its opening in May 2012. In this important exhibition, Martin presents a new body of work where each painting has been named after one of the world’s most notorious or tyrannical dictators. The artist says: “Our choices…are key to a modern life in a very uncivilized world. And by those choices we empower leaders that appeal to our emotions, yet more significantly to our very concentrated prejudices.” Featured pieces are named after Obregon, the President of Mexico who assassinated his predecessor, and Tojo, the Japanese Prime Minister responsible for the WWII attack on Pearl Harbour. The character of each piece, composed of intensely concentrated layers of pure pigment, is a militant journey in monochromatic colour.
