Martin Kerrision

http://www.martinkerrison.com

Studio: 13

Martin Kerrison exhibits a selection of narrative drawings, paintings, and prints. His work combines magical realism with social satire and commentary. Set by the coast - perhaps the destination of weekend travellers from an early twentieth-century railway ad - fun fairs, lighthouses, beached icons of consumerism, armies of men in suits; serve as characters and backdrops for a very contemporary farce. There is a sense of a garden of earthly delights gone wrong, a bonfire of the vanities; as lost, often surreal figures, grotesques, at once trapped in their own conceit and social manner - strut across apocalyptic amusement parks. With titles like Crunch Time an attempt at some critique of the current economic situation is clear. Stylistic allusions are aplenty. The tension between stasis and motion is reminiscent of Bacon whilst the everyday is eulogised more in the manner of Stanley Spencer. In its elements of caricature and farce Peter Howson, Giles, or Hogarth and the quaint English charms of Paul Slater all come to mind. Dream plays its part as much as in any surrealist work and a sense of claustrophobia and melancholy pervades.