Michael Craig-Martin
September 2004
Michael Craig-Martin's work concerns itself with the viewer's perception of 'things'. is best known work entitled An Oak Tree
(1973) is a piece consisting of a glass of water on a shelf. The
viewer's gaze is challenged by his/her perception of what is there and
what he/she has been told is there.
After participating in the definitive conceptual show The New Art at the Hayward Gallery in 1972, by the late seventies Craig-Martin's work began to explore the 'complex interdependencies between naming, articulation and picturing'. (1) The artist selected a lexicon of random, everyday images which he soon transformed into his standard iconography.
He drew them in 3/4s perspective, transferred them to the wall using black tape, painted them on the wall as temporary murals, reconfigured and combined them in arrangements which might be described as sculpture (2)
From installations, where a single image may be placed somewhere on a wall of intense colour, Craig-Martin here applies the visual language of the quotidian to a much smaller format, the pages of a book. The artist's Book consists of a long 'fold-out' series of ten screenprints which almost act like a portable installation. Craig-Martin place each object, for example a pair of shoes (Doc Martens), a bathroom shaving mirror, a torch, a filing cabinet with the second draw open, deliberately poised in a vast expanse of saturated colour. They float yet are stable in their own space.
In addition to being a well-established artist, from 1977 to 1988, Craig-Martin has been a tutor at Goldsmiths' College, London and Millard Professor of Fine Art there since 1994. His former students include many of the generation of highly successful 'young British artists', such as Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Abigail Lane and Sarah Lucas.
A trustee of the Tate Gallery, Craig-Martin not only is a perceptive and intuitive writer on art, but also curated the much acclaimed exhibition, Drawing the Line (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and various venues 1995) which re-appraised the role of drawing in relation to artistic practice.
1. Wislaw Borowski, Wallpaintings at the Villa Herbst (Museum Sztuki. Lodz, Poland. November 1994 - January 1995), p.12
2. Adrian Searle, Innocence and Experience (Waddington Galleries, London. February - March 1997), no pagination
After participating in the definitive conceptual show The New Art at the Hayward Gallery in 1972, by the late seventies Craig-Martin's work began to explore the 'complex interdependencies between naming, articulation and picturing'. (1) The artist selected a lexicon of random, everyday images which he soon transformed into his standard iconography.
He drew them in 3/4s perspective, transferred them to the wall using black tape, painted them on the wall as temporary murals, reconfigured and combined them in arrangements which might be described as sculpture (2)
From installations, where a single image may be placed somewhere on a wall of intense colour, Craig-Martin here applies the visual language of the quotidian to a much smaller format, the pages of a book. The artist's Book consists of a long 'fold-out' series of ten screenprints which almost act like a portable installation. Craig-Martin place each object, for example a pair of shoes (Doc Martens), a bathroom shaving mirror, a torch, a filing cabinet with the second draw open, deliberately poised in a vast expanse of saturated colour. They float yet are stable in their own space.
In addition to being a well-established artist, from 1977 to 1988, Craig-Martin has been a tutor at Goldsmiths' College, London and Millard Professor of Fine Art there since 1994. His former students include many of the generation of highly successful 'young British artists', such as Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Abigail Lane and Sarah Lucas.
A trustee of the Tate Gallery, Craig-Martin not only is a perceptive and intuitive writer on art, but also curated the much acclaimed exhibition, Drawing the Line (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and various venues 1995) which re-appraised the role of drawing in relation to artistic practice.
1. Wislaw Borowski, Wallpaintings at the Villa Herbst (Museum Sztuki. Lodz, Poland. November 1994 - January 1995), p.12
2. Adrian Searle, Innocence and Experience (Waddington Galleries, London. February - March 1997), no pagination
Jennifer Ramkalawon