DEBRAH MARTIN

As an author, my work centres around the observation of how action creates reaction, absorbing and reflecting the ambiance of the world and situations in which those reactions occur. As an artist, however, I am inspired by what has already become, and my paintings seek to reflect the drama and diversity of what we so often take for granted around us.

The meaning to life is what we experience in it. I paint the meaning we experience all around us. Sometimes it is beautiful – a lilting landscape or a sunset sea. Sometimes it is harsh and ugly; a factory belching smoke, or a city engulfed in its own smog.

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Yet whatever it is, there is also always a raw beauty to depict. My goal is to inspire those who see my work to look more carefully at the world around them and discover the meaning in the raw beauty they see, whether it’s immediately obvious or more subtly underlying what is on the surface.

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2019 sees the release of the book I have written on how I paint using the sfumato technique, and how painting and writing cross-fertilise in my creative world. It is called Savage Seas and Sfumato Skies – painting lyrical landscapes in brushstrokes and words.

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I have won two literary awards – for Patchwork Man, a psychological thriller, and for Chained Melodies, a literary fiction. I also regularly teach and mentor.