Michael Craig Martin - Drawing

Michael Craig Martin was born in Dublin Ireland in 1941. He grew up and was educated in the United States, studying fine art at the Yale university school of art. He came to Britain on completion of his studies in 1966, and has lived and worked there ever since. He is a key figure in the emergence of the young british artists in the early 90s.

Throughout his career, he explored many different media's, exploring the expressive potential of commonplace objects and images. 

The drawings I am particularly looking at is the tape drawings. 

A quote from Michael Craig Martin-
'I see my paintings as being informed by my years of making sculpture. I think of my paintings as flat sculptures. The thing that has the greatest impact only work has been the computer- I got my first Mac in the early 90s for word processing. Using the cut and paste tool was a dream for me!

When I started to do word processing I discovered the same way I constructed my work. I could scan all the separate images that I wanted to assemble on to the computer which was unbelievably liberating for me. My work process was tediously slow in the past, and the implications of making even the smallest change ware immense, but now I can make 1000 changes and think nothing of doing 100 drawings. 

Ironically the paintings I do are extremely hand-crafted. I do certain things with digital printing, but the kind of quality you get from painting- the layering- has a physical characteristic I like. All the planning is digital, and this is what liberates the making. I plan all the colour , but when it comes to actually doing it, I have to adjust to ongoing circumstances.

All of the painting with four inch rollers- we have almost eliminated the brush. 

The drawing is done with tape, or the removal of tape, so the paper is like a stencil and the painting is done in flat areas. Rolling gives you a very even colour, and can take many layers.'


I found reading this very interesting to find out the process in which he creates his works.