Julian Martin

Both Martin’s lack of formal training and autism have identified him as one of the key figures within the Outsider Art category in Australia. This categorisation is confirmed by his repeated inclusion in Outsider Art exhibitions and fairs, both in Australia and in the USA. However, in recent years his work has also achieved success in more conventional art institutions and Alex Baker, former curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria has likened his works to those of American Abstract artists of the 1930s and 1940s such as Adolph Gottlieb, William Baziotes and Ad Reinhardt, claiming that they are similarly characterised by “pictographic, biomorphic and hard-edged abstraction.”

A highly prolific artist whose works number in the hundreds and are stored in the archival collection of Arts Project Australia, Martin’s work has developed from early abstracted monochrome figures and profiles into a practice which combines source material found in newspapers and magazines with the bold, flattened geometric repetition of form that has become his “signature style.” Recent works are drawn from mainly photographic and physical sources ranging from depictions of Hollywood celebrities, politicians and sports stars to an eclectic range of kitchen utensils, tools, letters and logos. The expansion of subject matter in recent work has been accompanied with a more textural and layered use of the familiar pastel medium - Baker notes the use of etching implements to create works which are “abraded, scoured and pitted,” stating that they stand as “testimony to the artist’s vigorous process.”

Martin was diagnosed with autism at the age of two and was supported and encouraged by his parents, who claimed that his diagnosis had ‘cemented’ their family and that he showed signs of ‘promise.’ He attended a program for special-needs children, but did not start making art until approximately the age of ten. During his time at an autism-specific school, which he attended for several years, he “won a minor art prize,” however the early promise identified by his parents was not realised until 1989, when an instructor at the Adult Day Centre at which Martin attended recognised his artistic talent. Shortly thereafter he began working at Arts Project Australia, an organisation devoted to supporting and promoting artists with an intellectual disability. Although Martin received no formal training, his participation in the studio program at Arts Project Australia gave him access to fine art materials and the informal tuition provided by the practicing artists employed by the organisation. It was one such artist who, in the early 1990s, suggested the use of a mirror as a drawing aid, which eventually led to the development of his signature depictions of mask-like faces executed in pastel. These early works were exhibited in Martin’s first solo show, entitled Pastel Drawings at the Australian Galleries in Collingwood, Melbourne.

Julian Martin: Transformer, exhibition catalogue, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 2014. ISBN 9780958665919

Julian Martin (born Melbourne 1969) is an Australian artist, known primarily for his pastel drawings and self-portraits. Martin resides in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster, and has worked from his Northcote-based studio at Arts Project Australia since 1989, where he has also had numerous solo shows. He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally [see Exhibitions] and in 1994 he was a finalist in the prestigious Moët & Chandon Travelling Fellowship. In 2014 he was the winner of the Australian State Trustees Connected art prize. His work is held in several public collections, including the Deakin University Art Collection, the City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection and Monash University Museum of Art.