Martyn Cross
Vague Terrain 2022, oil on flax, 66x86.4
Image credit - Charlie Littlewood at Hales Gallery
Martyn Cross (b. 1975) is a visual artist and painter based in Bristol, UK. His paintings draw upon aspects of mythology and folklore, the medieval, and ideas of human metamorphosis. The imagery frequently depicts personified landscapes suggesting the potential for earthly things to share matter. In the studio, contemplative layering of pigment is followed by meticulous bothering of the painted surface - on the wall the paintings appear plucked from an unknown and ambiguous history. This methodical practice of worldmaking is at once both joyous and troubling, familiar and mysterious.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
O, happiness! happiness!, Hales Gallery, London (2022)
Roarings Further Out, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2022)
Earth Hymns, Ratio 3, San Francisco (2021)
Fresh Hell, The Garage, Bristol (2019)
Truth Toggle, That Gallery, Bristol (2018)
Selected Group Exhibitions
The Moth and the Thunderclap, Stuart Shave Modern Art, London (2023)
Ares, OHSH Projects at Cromwell Place, London (2023)
Myths of Observation, Hales Gallery, London (2022)
Green Minds, mepaintsme, online (2022)
God of War, OHSH Projects, London (2022)
Your Foot in My Face, Kingsgate Project Space, London (2021)
A Thought Sublime, Marianne Boesky, New York (2021)
DTLA Summer Session, Ratio 3, Los Angeles (2021)
Alumni Exhibition, Bath Spa University (2020)
Mostyn Open, Mostyn, Llandudno (2019)
Nightswimming, Mission Gallery, Swansea (2018)
Monument, 2022, oil paint on flax, 66x86.4cm
Image credit - Charlie Littlewood at Hales gallery
Vegetation Ceremonies, 2022, oil paint on flax, 10x14inch
Image credit - Charlie Littlewood at Hales Gallery
Time At Hogchester Arts
Residency period - Jan/Feb 2023
Every dawn gives rise to a hazy orb, draped in skeins of gentle bluff, fingers extending outwards and onwards. In the dip a shaft of light and yonder lifts a bird of prey. It remains tantalisingly unknown. Nearer, a robin flits and boasts, its home a tangling mass of intertwining rolling looping branches. It pips and struts. We slowly surface for the ritual: two scoops of muesli and a trip of goats. Trundling hooves announce themselves and for a brief moment diabolical chaos - thumping heads, muddy leaps and clattering horns. Furious nibbling and soft warm lips. Scritching brings an end. Now the real work, or at least, an attempt. Maybe first a moment to roam… Down down muddy tramping, shucking boots and slippy slop. Over stiles traversing streams, carbuncles are quietly conquered, skies unfold raw and wide. Trace of human here and there, collapsed memories of something long forgotten, on the edge relentless vegetable ceremony. We slowly become the hill and drift through centuries as mineral matter, all fungal veins. Creeping coastward the sea consumes and devours. We emerge a tor and slump to scree, our torpid guts silent in the gloaming. Onwards then, to the studio…
