We are delighted to welcome back Karl Martens to his second one man show at the Wykeham Gallery. His unique style of work will be well known to clients of the gallery as we have now been showing his work on a regular basis for several years.
Born in San Francisco in 1956, Karl grew up near Drottningholm, outside Stockholm. He then lived in Switzerland and Canada before returning to his place of birth, San Francisco. After an absence of 24 years he returned to Sweden at the age of 40.
Nature studies, with a passion for birds, have been Karl’s main interest since childhood. Having initially painted very exact, detailed pictures, he has more recently developed a freer style. Karl is very interested in the forms of meditation found in Zen Buddhism and he tries to apply this to his painting. “The best result is achieved when no thought is given to it – when the mind rests in emptiness and intuition takes over”.
In his painting, Karl strives to capture the emotional essence of the subject rather than a perfect depiction, challenging his own perceptions and letting the image develop. He paints from memory using watercolour and charcoal on hand-made paper. Karl’s work is held in collections around the world.
The Calligraphy of Flight
“In Japanese calligraphy one tries to create harmony between thick and thin brush strokes in the characters, looking for an anchor point from which other strokes emanate. The result is a fluidity of shapes reminiscent of shapes in nature. Trying to capture these forms in my work turned out to be a good exercise in calligraphy as well as painting. Not all paintings in this show are of flying birds but just as in calligraphically brushed text, the fluid motions are enhanced by the sudden appearance of a static character here and there.”
PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL WORK IS SOLD UNFRAMED.