Works °19 — MARTIN GALE

interview by Brian Fallon

ISBN 978 0946641 499     32 pages (paperback)    20x15cm    17 illus

Martin Gale paints in a super-realist style that leaves the viewer wondering what is going on behind the image, what is not being said, what scene is being evoked beyond the scene. In this book we learn of Gale’s interest in Pop art and the realist tradition. He talks about the autobiographic nature of his work, how his family came to influence his figure paintings and how he approached his still-life painting. Excellent colour reproductions convey the originality and precision of this artist.

EXTRACT

"One thing I respect in Pop art is the strength of the images; they are strong and simple, emblematic almost. Warhol, for example, created some memorable images, the kind which stamp themselves on your mind’s eye and stay in your head. That emblematic quality was one of the things I was aiming at in the still-life paintings of late – the stand of asparagus, for instance, three times life-size and placed in the centre of a square canvas. The same is true of the crumpled paper bag or the glass of leeks. As for photo-realism influencing me – as has sometimes been said and written – the true facts are that I only saw works of that kind reproduced in books and magazines, not the original. I would hope eventually to be recognised as a realist painter. After all, the realist tradition has always been going on in some form, even during periods in which most artists had turned to abstraction. When I was in college, the abstract expressionists were the ones whom most of the students admired – Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, etc. There were also a few of us who had an interest in pop art, David Hockney and Peter Blake and so on. Pierre Soulages was another influence – you know, that style of attacking the canvas, bang-bang – but then, art students often know surprisingly little about what is happening elsewhere."

— Martin Gale in conversation