SUE MARTIN
Sue Martin is a South African artist, working primarily in mixed media, contemporary style paintings.
Sue grew up in the 60’s in Natal. From an early age she was fascinated by the creative process and went on to study towards a Fine Arts Degree at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
Sue enjoys experimenting with various media, including photography.
Her constant, the use of oil pigments, often sits on the surface, hovering above the landscape. There is a sense of the figures being displaced from their surroundings.
“Art is about a journey, an exploration of something that is new and relevant to me. “
The subject matter too, offers a snapshot, a moment that is caught, depicting migrant labourers, farm workers and mineworkers. Subject matter that is relevant to her growing up on a farm and observing the ebb and flow of the rural workforce.
Sue’s work has relevance, in the sense that her subject matter, the “Urban Cowboy” is captured in such a way that he takes on an identity, just like the archival photos, that Sue also derives inspiration from. These people often take on a momentous quality.
“They become heroic within the context of my work.”
Her subject matter spans her two lives between Natal and Johannesburg. All these people who have come from a rural life to seek their fortune…”These rural herdsmen earning their living from herding trollies of paper and plastic around Johannesburg.”
Currently…
South African painter and printmaker Sue Martin is one such artist who employs the dusty vistas, scorched by the African Sun, as some of the backdrops against which she grapples with her own positionality as a third generation South African. Drawing from historical sources, her lived experiences, her travels and a selection of her own photographs, Martin builds up and disrupts the surfaces of her artworks creating a palimpsest of ideas, images, media and marks. Martin’s exploration of her identity is sensitive and purposeful. The textures Martin creates through the layering of paint and wax are prompts for the viewer to look closer and to scratch beneath the visually pleasing surface in order to unearth the layers of complex engagement
“I am trying to capture that elusiveness, called time.”
1998: Participated in the St Johns Centenary exhibition
1999: First solo exhibition at the Enviro Gallery, Houghton Estate
2001: Solo exhibition at Upstairs@Bamboo, Melville
2002: Participated in a group exhibition for the French Consulate
2002: Joint exhibition with Eleonora Bonavera at Upstairs@Bamboo, in Melville
2004: Solo exhibition in Westcliff
2006: Exhibited at Rooms on View
2007: Exhibited at Rooms on View
2008: Exhibited at Rooms on View
2008: Exhibited at Castellano Beltrame
2008: Exhibited in the Sun International Positive Art Exhibition
2009: Exhibited in an exhibition of international and South African at the White House Gallery
2010: Exhibited with Joan Sainsbury and Julia Cavalleri at Villa Arcadia in Parktown
2011: Solo exhibition at the David Brown Gallery Sandton
2012: Participated in a group exhibition at Toto Gallery Bridharven
2015: Solo exhibition at Alive Art Kramerville
2015: Solo exhibition at Halifax Gallery Parkhurst
2015: Group show at Everard Read Stone Steel and Bronze
2016: That Art Fair Cape Town
2016: Turbine Art Fair Newtown
2016: FNB ART FAIR and JHB ART WEEK
2016: Solo exhibition at Intoto Gallery Jhb
2017: Participated in a group exhibition at Intoto Gallery Jhb
2017: Turbine Art Fair
2017: FNB ART FAIR and JHB ART WEEK
2017: Participated in a Women group exhibition at Artist Proof Studio Jhb
2017: KKNK Festival Karoo
2017: Solo exhibition at Julie Miller Investment Art Gallery Midrand
2017: Tiny group exhibition at Intoto Gallery Jhb
2017: SA Fine Art Print Fair GIBS Jhb
2018: Design Joburg
2019: Design Joburg
2019: Illusion / Allusion Group Exhibition
2019: Turbine Art Fair
2019: Knysna Fine Art Gallery Group Exhibition
2020: Grande Provence
2020: Gathering: A community of Portraits ( Group exhibition at Jaffer Modern
2021: Solo exhibition at White River Gallery
2021: Turbine Art Fair
2022: Knysna Fine Art Gallery Group Exhibition
2022: Decorex Africa
2022: Loud Speaker Group Exhibition
2022: Seeing Far Group Exhibition