Stockroom Kyneton, gallery one 24 May / 29 June 2025
JARRAD MARTYN Echo
Strange Attractor, 2024, oil on canvas, 84 x 80 cm
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.
Stockroom Kyneton, gallery two 04 February / 12 March 2023
JARRAD MARTYN Polar Front
Refuge, 2022, oil on canvas, 89 x 91 cm.
Polar Front explores humanity's relationship with the natural environment through intersecting family and world histories. Martyn's inspiration for this new body of work is through film photographs his Father took whilst working as a helicopter pilot, based at Casey Station in Antarctica during the 1980s.
As Antarctica has experienced some of the most rapid warmings on Earth it has significantly changed since the photographs were taken. Once stable ice shelves are melting faster, the declining habitat of several Penguin species and the human footprint in the region are increasing. In the past, the photographs were personal memories of a far-off alien land but are now foreboding and darker.
Martyn uses the principles of bricolage, something constructed from a diverse range of things, to bring together academic research and imagery. Pictorial forms are assimilated into different contexts and are collaged together to encourage the creation of new conversations and symbolic connections. The works in 'Polar Front' combine archival photographs from Antarctica, with appropriated early-Colonial Australian painting language, climate modeling and weather forecast patterns, and Romantic painting techniques. The dripping of paint, blurring of figuration, and shifts in texture conceive landscapes that are in flux and out-of-this-world. This slippage attempts to occupy the space between the public consciousness of the changing climate and the individual's impact, all whilst confronting the personal and familial significance of memory-making and keeping.
