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Polar Front 9solo exhibition)
Polar Front explores humanity's relationship with the natural environment through intersecting family and world histories. Martyn's inspiration for this new body of work is through film photographs his Father took whilst working as a helicopter pilot, based at Casey Station in Antarctica during the 1980s.
As Antarctica has experienced some of the most rapid warmings on Earth it has significantly changed since the photographs were taken. Once stable ice shelves are melting faster, the declining habitat of several Penguin species and the human footprint in the region are increasing. In the past, the photographs were personal memories of a far-off alien land but are now foreboding and darker.
Martyn uses the principles of bricolage, something constructed from a diverse range of things, to bring together academic research and imagery. Pictorial forms are assimilated into different contexts and are collaged together to encourage the creation of new conversations and symbolic connections. The works in 'Polar Front' combine archival photographs from Antarctica, with appropriated early-Colonial Australian painting language, climate modeling and weather forecast patterns, and Romantic painting techniques. The dripping of paint, blurring of figuration, and shifts in texture conceive landscapes that are in flux and out-of-this-world. This slippage attempts to occupy the space between the public consciousness of the changing climate and the individual's impact, all whilst confronting the personal and familial significance of memory-making and keeping.