Renowned artist Kerry Martin has kindly donated a beautiful series of large oil paintings to the Bob Brown Foundation to raise funds for our campaigns.

To purchase one of these works, contact Amanda Sully (03 6294 0620) at the Bob Brown Foundation office for more information. 

These stunning works would be perfect for a corporate boardroom or office, or a home with enough space to display them.

Kerry's artist statement and CV appear below.

Artist Statement

“CANOPY”

Within metres of my back door I can walk into the shelter of overarching greenery - into the green. Under the canopy of greenery I can find my forest muse, a place of poetry and beauty.  My forest provides shelter, refuge and food for the creatures who make it their home and I feel hushed and reverential traversing the forest floor, treading gently on green moss and fallen debris.

This series of forest paintings is the second I have done using my own small portion of paradise.  Every painting has the forest as its genesis and apart from the snow works each was painted ‘in situ’. The canvases were carried into the forest, worked upon for several hours and taken back into the studio for completion. Imagine carrying the canvases back out of the forest, struggling with the big paintings to ensure I didn’t wipe off the wet surface onto bracken and foliage!

 All the paintings in this series contain some element of the title “Canopy”:  This may be the over hanging shelter of branches and foliage of towering eucalypts, or the covering of mosses and lichens on fallen logs and rocks.  With the change of seasons, snow and frost drape ferns and forest floor, in summer the canopy throws sun-dappled tapestry mosaics onto the earth and after the winter rains tannin, leached from foliage, stains the forest pools to rich sienna.  As the heat of summer advances the forest dries, turning vibrancy to soft greens, golds and silver and fallen debris to muted greys, bleached of spring’s fresh colour.  Many tree species stretch toward the sun, reaching up through the canopy to the light, acacias and eucalypts, Blackwood, Sassafras and Dogwood jostle for dominance, their lichen spotted trunks indistinguishable from below - it’s only by straining, looking upwards, that the foliage can be identified.

In the green it is hushed, the senses smothered like the blocked ears and blurry vision of being underwater.  I remember such sensations swimming underwater looking up to the sun. As my forest is rain-forest it’s easy to imagine being underwater looking through veils of iridescent green.  There is a poem by Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert that resonates with me and this series:  I quote;

…all that remains

a drop of water

let it go between

the earth and sky

let it be transparent rain

frost’s fern snow’s petal…

Kerry Martin

Kerry Martin Curriculum Vitae

INTRODUCTION

I started my art training at East Sydney Technical College, an Australian icon that has had many major artists pass through its doors. After a childhood in Australia’s bush going to Sydney was a bewildering experiences and I left art-college after a year only resuming my education later in life. By this time I had already achieved some success in the Sydney art world with a Highly Commended in the Portia Geach Portrait Prize, had my first solo exhibition and then moved to Central Australia.

BIOGRAPHY

1999 Bachelor of Arts, University of South Australia, SA
1992 Diploma of Visual Arts: North Adelaide School of Arts, SA 1986 Alice Springs TAFE, NT
1964/65 East Sydney Technical College, NSW

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT
2010 Aratong Galleries, Singapore
2009 Eva Breuer Art Dealer, Woollahra, Sydney, NSW

Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2008 Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2007 Thistle Gallery, Ross, TAS
2006 The Salamanca Collection, Hobart, TAS
2006 Eva Breuer Art Dealer, Sydney, NSW
2004 The Devonport Regional Gallery, Devonport, TAS
2002 Eva Breuer Art Dealer, Sydney, NSW
2000 Art Images Gallery, Adelaide, SA
1998 Newland Gallery, Country Arts Trust, Port Adelaide, SA
1995 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide, SA
1993 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide, SA
1991 Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, SA
1990 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT
1990 Framed, The Showcase Gallery, Darwin, NT
1987 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT
1986 The Residency, Alice Springs, NT
1983 Penrith Regional and Lewers Bequest Gallery, Emu Plains, NSW

AWARDS (inclusion in art awards nationally over 25 years) 2013 Finalist in the John Glover Art Prize, TAS

Finalist in the Colville Lloyd Rees Art Prize

Finalist in the TasArts Burnie Art Prize
2012 Finalist in the TasArts Burnie Art Prize
2008 Finalist in the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, SA Museum, SA

Finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize, Gippsland Art Gallery, VIC

2006 Finalist in the John Glover Art Prize, TAS
2005 Awarded The People’s Choice Award in the Hobart Art Prize, TAS

Finalist in the Island Art Award 2005

Finalist in the Hobart Art Prize 2005, TAS
2002 Awarded a Highly Commended in the City of Burnie TasArt Exhibition, TAS 1983 Portia Geach Prize - Highly Commended (included five times in selection), NSW

COLLECTIONS (paintings also held privately in the UK, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia)

2013 Acquisition of painting by the Burnie Regional Art Gallery, TAS
2012 3 paintings accepted for donation to the Devonport Regional Gallery, TAS for

permanent collection
2012 1 paintings accepted for donation to the Burnie Regional Art Gallery, TAS for

permanent collection
2011 Acquisition of painting by Arts @ work, TAS

2007 Collaborative painting acquired by Dept of Environment and Water Resources, Canberra, ACT

2006 Set of three works acquired by The St George Bank, Sydney, NSW
2005 Acquisition of painting by Arts @ work under Art for Public Buildings Scheme, TAS 2000 Acquired by the Museum & Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, NT (MAGNT) 1995 Acquired by Fran O’Brian, Owen Dixon Chambers (West), Melbourne, VIC 1993 Set of 3 drawings acquired by Johnston Withers (legal chambers), Adelaide, SA 1993

Acquired by Paul Heywood-Smith QC, Anthony Mason Chambers, Adelaide, SA 1989 Acquisition of painting by the Araluen Art Centre, NT 1987 Portrait acquired by the Pitjantjatjara Council Pty Ltd, NT

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (inclusion in group shows & art awards nationally over 25 years)

2013 “Recent Acquisitions from the Permanent Collection” July/August 2013,

Devonport Regional Gallery, Devonport, TAS
2012 Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart, TAS, 3 paintings on public display 2011 Group exhibition Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne VIC
2007 Group exhibition Plot, Devonport Regional Gallery, Devonport, TAS

Group exhibition Local Connections Feature Artist TLAW, Sheffield. TAS Collaborative painting with Tali Tali Pompey and Iwana Ken. Finalist in Drawing Together, group exhibition, Public Service Commission, Canberra, ACT

Group exhibition Festivite Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne VIC
2006 Painting from MAGNT collection included in The Sound of the Sky exhibition, MAGNT, NT
Invited to exhibit in Tattersall’s Club Landscape Art Prize 2006, Brisbane, QLD

2006 Works in the Summer and Winter Exhibitions at The Salamanca Collection,

TAS
2005 Works in the Summer and Winter Exhibitions at The Salamanca Collection, TAS
2000 SA Living Artists Exhibition Country at the Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, SA 1999 Invited to exhibit in the Alice Prize 20th Anniversary Exhibition
1994 Group exhibition Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide SA

PUBLICATIONS, ESSAYS (including numerous reviews over 25 years of exhibiting)

2013 Kate Prestt, “Abstract work rocks for artist”, The Advocate, February 2013 TAS

Kate Prestt, “North-West artists in running for coveted Glover Prize, The

Advocate, February 2013 TAS
2008 Editorial, The First Burst News, ABC Limelight magazine, May 2008
2007 Nicki Fletcher, Lasting Impressions of Impermanence, Tasmania 40o South, Issue 45, TAS Gill Vowles, Painting with an ever broader brush, July 22, Sunday Tasmanian TAS

TLAW, Sheffield Feature Artist, brochure guide for TLAW, August, TAS 2006 Daena Murray, The Sound of the Sky published for MAGNT by CDU Press 2006 Sunanda Creach, Shroudings: New Paintings, April 22-23, The Sydney

Morning Herald, NSW
2006 Joerg Andersch, Tour de force of landscape, October 28, The Mercury, TAS 2004 Andrea Stretton catalogue essay for Shroudings at Devonport Regional Gallery, TAS

Deborah Cole, Immersed in the Landscape, November 15, The Advocate, TAS 2002 Victoria Young, Landscape, The Sun-Herald Sunday Metro, NSW
2000 Samila Harris, Art Collector, Issue 14 Oct-Dec, Smart Art For Under $2000 1999 Kerry Martin Nganana Rawangku Alatji Warkaripai, research and story compilation,

NPY Women’s Council NT
1998 International Artist, Issue 3 Oct/Nov Creating symbolic pastel in the heartland 1995 Adam Dutkiewicz, New palette adds richness to artist, July 19, The Advertiser, SA

Cover illustration for Freedom & Entrapment, CollinsDove Publishers, North

Blackburn, VIC
1993 Joint Board of Christian Education, A Place At the Table, Women at the last

Supper, VIC
1991 John Emery, Landscape turns battleground, March 20, The Advertiser, SA 1988 Sheila Browne, Inspired by Aboriginal Life, 13 Jan, The Australian, NSW
1982 Video: Simon Townsend’s Wonder World, Little Landscapes, April 7, Channel

10, Sydney, NSW