Additional Info
Halo
from Echo exhibition
“The recent works begin to introduce more subjects from my own photographs into the framing of Antarctica and place.
Through my recent travels to Japan, some of the lighting experienced in Games Arcades reminded me of some of the colours seen at dawn and dusk through my Fathers archive. Colour was critical to my dads documentation of the landscape as it acted as a catalyst for capturing amoment, he said ‘If you saw a different colour you documented it’.
There is an artificialness yet otherworldliness within Japanese arcade lighting which really distort your sense of place and surroundings. The painting depicts an arcade game with a number of different screens in the background. I’m interested in how these screens suggest an entry point into another reality and experience, an experience that doesn’t seem real or relative, like the Antarctica imagery.”
- Jarrad Martyn, 2025
The starting point for this new body of work was the artist’s father’s photo album, which he created during his time working in Antarctica in 1985. As Martyn explored the album, he became intrigued by how the meaning of these photographs and the archive itself evolves over time, evoking new political and environmental associations in the present day.
‘Echo’ marks the introduction of found imagery into this personal archive. Motifs drawn from different contexts and time periods from historical archives, nature magazines and holiday snaps are combined together through digital collage. The resulting narratives take on an uncanny and unresolved quality, continuing to challenge the legacy of our relationship with the landscape.
Martyn’s approach to painting blurs the lines between figuration and abstraction, creating a ‘state of flux’ that fosters a more ambiguous sense of place. By resisting precise representation, he encourages the viewer to shift between different modes of thinking and perception, inviting them to make connections and form their own interpretations of the unfolding events and the symbolic meanings embedded within. By leaving these narratives unresolved, Martyn creates space for deeper reflection, expanding the possibilities for interpretation and connection.
Jarrad Martyn (b. 1991) is an Australian artist based in Melbourne. His practice explores humanity’s relationship with the natural environment and how different historical events are framed. Through painting and drawing Martyn employs the principle of bricolage, something constructed from a diverse range of things, to collate academic research and its associated imagery to create an alternate conversation. Heavily relying on shifts between expected context and associated time periods, the contrasting motifs are used to explore the relationship between industry and the environment, species hierarchy, the conservation function of zoos, the evolution of collective memory, and the function of public monuments in modern society.
In Martyn’s work, the handling of paint is characterised by making adjustments to the opacity, texture, and clarity of the paint. The aim of which is to make the surface of the painting interesting and at times to hinder the representation of motifs. This in turn encouraging the audience to look longer, to deduce links between, and decipher their own conclusions as to what events are unfolding, and the symbolic meanings within.
Martyns’ work is in a number of public and private collections including the University of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University, Curtin University, City of Perth, City of Joondalup, Shire of Mundaring, and St John of God Hospital Art Collection. Martyn has been selected as a finalist in numerous national art awards, most significantly winning the John Stringer Art Prize (2018), the City of Joondalup Community Invitation Art Award Overall Acquisitive Award (2017) and the Fifty Squared Art Prize (2021) at the Brunswick Street Gallery.
Martyn’s practice also extends into the public sphere, being commissioned for a number of large-scale council and commercial murals. His work can be seen in the Shire of Collie (WA), Rochester (VIC), City of Fremantle (WA), City of Swan (WA), and the Newman Hotel in the Pilbara (WA), among others.