News & Reviews
Guest Artist Durham University
Delighted to be chosen to be the great artist for St Mary’s College, a pioneering women’s college within Durham University, where I’ll be presenting a body of work highlighting the dissonance between academic privilege and the reality of the urban North East.
Chaiya Art Award 2023 Shortlist
Thrilled to announce that Lethe has been selected for the prestigious Chaiya Art Awards 2023 Shortlist, and will be exhibited with other shortlisted works in their London prize exhibition in April 2023. ( 7th April - 16th April Southbank)
Elegy for The Dales, Solo Show & Public Lectures
For me, the Paris Salon is the big one, so after the disappointment of being unable to exhibit since 2020 , I'm absolutely thrilled to be back for my third Salon on their special 160th anniversary exhibition. See you at the vernissage!
My annual solo show for 2023 Elegy for The Dales explores how the places we make come in time to make us. A show of new large format works, plus a series of public events including an informal meet the artist walk and talk at the show and ticketed public lecture in the principal auditorium on site.
Paris Salon des Beaux Arts 2022 (celebrating 160 years)
From Burnley to Downing St
When Boris Johnson won the election on the back of the so called Red Wall seats , I sent him a picture of what it looked like to focus his mind on levelling up. To his credit it now hangs in Downing Street, as Art critic David Whetstone reported for Cultured North East.
‘Regeneration is both the exhibition’s title and its theme. It’s a bounce back after the darkest days of the pandemic and a nod to what the North is and might become if the Government delivers on its ‘levelling up’ promises.
The artist tells me that after Boris Johnson won the election by breaching the ‘red wall’, a thought entered his head: “What he needs is a picture of Burnley on his wall.
“I sent half a dozen pictures down to him as pdfs, explaining why I thought he should have one of them. I wanted a picture of the North to be right in front of him.”
Burnley (oil on canvas) was duly selected for the Government Art Collection (GAC) and it hangs at Downing Street, there to be admired by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.
On the GAC website it is described thus: “landscape 21stC, industrial, urban, bin, street, terraced house, chimney”.
If that isn’t the perfect counterpoint to a Lulu Lytle interior, then I don’t know what is.
But if that blunt inventory sounds bleak, the Kinnear painting style is anything but. With deft brushstrokes and exuberant swathes of colour, he elevates grittiness to something rich and magisterial.’
BBC Look North Feature 20.01. 2022
The BBC filmed Martin during the installation of Regeneration and asked how he went from the council estates of East Lancashire to the Paris Salon, Downing St and The Bowes Museum to bring his message about transformative change to life.