News

Gerard Martin's '81 pallette paints valley

Posted December 3, 2008

By Robert Walsh - The Californian

The early morning and late afternoon are two of Gerard Martin's favorite times of the day.

Whether he is setting up his easel or meandering through the hills and fields of the Salinas Valley with his camera in search of his next subject, the artist relishes the defused, soft light and long shadows that make these times so special.

"What people seem to really respond to in my work is the interpretation of color," Martin said. "What I love is the effect of light on a subject and I try to capture the relationship between light and shadow at a given moment."

The Salinas resident teaches art at The York School in Monterey.

Although he finds his inspiration in both coastal and inland settings, for the past seven years Martin has focused on depicting rural scenes in the Salinas Valley and people working in an agricultural setting.

Whether it's an old barn, two men harvesting lettuce, or a field scene, Martin said he tries to work the hills or Mount Toro into the background of the painting. More often than not, one will also notice either fog creeping in from the coast or a build-up of clouds framing the hills.

"For a while I was doing what everyone else was, seascapes and what have you, but when our family moved to Toro Park in 2000, I began to gradually focus more on landscapes of the Salinas Valley, scenes of people working in the fields, and farm equipment and animals," he said, explaining how his selection of subject matter evolved. "I think this now differentiates my work from other Central Coast artists."

Commenting on his choice of venue, Martin said, "The valley isn't an easy place to paint, but the longer you spend there, the more you recognize how to handle the subject matter. At first glance there's not a lot of color, but if you are in the valley early in the morning or late in the day and see the long shadows, you learn where to place the saturated colors."

Photos used as reference

Although he often paints out in the open (known as plein aire painting), Martin also uses his camera to capture a scene, and then uses the photo for reference as he creates a canvas indoors. When not painting outdoors, he works either at home in his garage or in a small studio in Monterey.

The camera is an especially important tool when Martin is doing a painting that involves agricultural workers, he said. After getting permission from the crew chief and people involved, he will capture the individuals or crew at work on film.

"There's just too much happening to work entirely from memory," Martin said. "I believe plein aire painting and studio work can complement one another. By going back and forth between the two, I think I am able to capture the best of both approaches."

Although he initially trained to be an illustrator, Martin's work leans more towards expressionism than realism. When he includes figures in a composition, he said, his painting is more impressionist or perhaps abstract, with the subjects broken down into geometric forms of color.

In a solo show at the Carmel Art Association in September, Martin's figurative paintings did quite well. The increasing popularity of his canvases featuring people working in the fields has been a very pleasant surprise, he said.

Started out as illustrator

In 2003 Martin became a member of the Carmel Art Association.

"That was a big transition for me," he said. "To be accepted and have the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas with other artists I respect made me feel as if I had arrived at a certain level in my career as a painter."

Born and raised in Pebble Beach, Martin graduated from Robert Louis Stevenson School in 1981. He attended the University of the Pacific, where he received a degree in studio arts, and then went on to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he studied editorial illustration.

After working as a freelance illustrator in the San Francisco Bay Area for a number of years, Martin returned to the Central Coast to teach art first at RLS and now at York.

Martin said it was during his last year at the Art Center that he became interested in oil painting. At the time, plein aire painting was becoming popular, and Martin gravitated towards it. In the 1990s he did a number of summer workshops with Ovanes Berberian in Idaho.

In 2000 Martin began showing his work in Galerie Plein Aire in Carmel. His paintings generally sell in the $600 to $2,000 range. With the economic downturn, Martin said, the market for original art has been adversely affected. Although he has noticed that the popularity of plein aire works has fallen off a bit, the demand for figurative art, for some reason, has held up reasonably well thus far, he said.