Jean Martin was born in Glasgow and studied Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art from 1964 -68.
While there, Jean won a scholarship to Hospitalfield School of Art and a number of awards including the final year drawing prize. Jean then went on to do a postgraduate teacher training at Aberdeen, gaining distinctions in teaching practice and academic studies and taught in secondary schools for a number of years.
While bringing up her children (both artists now!), Jean taught part-time in Forgan Art Centre in Newport on Tay - as her children grew older Jean was able to devote more time to painting and spent many years working in pure watercolour - loving the delicacy and vibrancy of that medium.
Jean then started to explore mixed media, and now, within her paintings, plays the brilliancy and delicacy of watercolour against the surface texture of acrylic and collage.
Jean's painting is a reaction to observation, whether it is within still life or landscape. Working with the intention of creating a response to her experience, she is fascinated by the way light affects the surface on which it plays. Whether it is on a delicate flower head or the stone of a church pillar, the fleeting impermanence and the vibrant or subtle illumination is a constant source of delight.
Jean paints using watercolour and mixed media and collage, often layering and working back into the image until she arrives at the surface and structure she is after, with freedom and form being the two dynamics that inform her work.
The pictorial content of Jean's paintings may have symbolic, historical or geographical associations and may or may not be set in a spatial context.
Artists