Martin Decent: Erosion of Memories - 2 November 2007

Martin Decent has painted all of his life and has explored numerous styles and genres, from marine painting (he is an exhibitor at the Royal Society of Marine Artists) to a current and deeply personal abstract expressionism. His prolific breadth of expertise and interest is illustrated throughout his career, from exhibiting at the Royal Academy Summer Show to writing a definitive technique of gouache painting. A sense of physical energy and a sophisticated language of signs and symbols is apparent in all of his paintings, whether they are concerned with the depiction of realism - grit stone cliffs, light across the Hope Valley - or with the development of his personal language.

Derbyshire and the Peak District have been the subject of Martin Decent’s paintings for many years. He is closely associated with thesweeping vistas and timeless beauty of the gritstone edges and dramatic moorland. However, his painting has become increasingly investigative and interrogative, reflecting his passion for light and colour responding intuitively to their interplay upon the seen, and more interestingly, the unseen, world. There is a tension in Martin’s work between the preoccupation with representational images, which respond to and develop themes from the traditions of English landscape painting, and the construction of a personal language, using visual metaphors, illusion and humour. However, even with his most traditional-seeming paintings, the process is never traditional. The surfaces of apparently representational Derbyshire Landscapepaintings roll and swell with the use of non- traditional materials and techniques. The use and application of materials is one of the most striking aspects of Martin’s work, where he can manipulate a range of natural and synthetic materials to produce the illusion of space and a sense of place. In his abstract work the symbolism becomes more overt, with images which are both iconic and accessible as well as intriguingly obscure, their references complex, their meanings veiled.

Martin describes his concern with colour,composition and texture as a reflection of his interest with the “beauty” of randomness to befound within nature. The paintings are often intended to be a “snapshot” of something far wider in dimension and far more likely to have changed over time. The confines of the edge of the canvas represents, for me, a “box” too contain these transitory moments. Changes through erosion, caused by the elements over time are a recurring theme. I often use gold and silver leaf as elements that signify immutability and stability amongst a continuous sea of change. Recurring symbolism or Totems alongside  found objects” and collage has always been important in my work. None of these paintings are intended to be realistic; they are more my interpretation of subjects that are intended to interact with the individual.

To quote Matisse “There is something unexplored in everything, because we have grown used to letting our eyes be conditioned by the memory of what others have thought before us...."