Donald Martin

My work is devoted toward the natural world and the representation of various animal and plant forms are abundant in my work. Personal experience with nature informs my use of line, texture, and color but it also informs the content of my work. My experience with nature represents my link between the everyday and the eternal. I often present a view of the natural world that is intimate, with a close up view of plants forms that present to the viewer a world that is, at once, abstract and recognizable. I have been inspired for years by the clarity and integrity of botanical and biological illustrations of the 18th and 19th century but in my work I have evolved away from the idealism and isolation of these illustrations. The images of nature in my work represent a complex and tangled  world where plant forms are often engaged in a competition for space and light which is, to me, an appropriate metaphor for the present state of the natural world.    The use of printmaking has been the primary focus of my creative output in recent years. I particularly enjoy the rituals and craft of printmaking processes and it is through these processes that much of my imagery evolves.