Jarrad Martyn

Jarrad Martyn uses painting to explore humanities shifting relationship with the natural environment and how legacy is visualised. Using photographs his father made while working in Antarctica in 1985 as the starting point, Martyn’s interest lays in the duality of the photographs - they are personally sentimental, yet draw out new political and environmental associations in the present day. The collective public memory of ‘Antarctica’ as a place and as an idea has become synonymous with current conversations around climate change and similar global concerns.

Through the use of collage and by collapsing the distinctions between figuration and abstraction to suggest a ‘state of flux’ Martyn presents a more fractured representation of space and time. From the resulting ambiguity, the viewer’s gaze is held for longer encouraging them to question the interaction and linkages between the depicted subjects.