Part of the New Light Prize Exhibition 2020

Martyn Lucas is an artist, curator and educator based near Wigan. In addition to painting in his studio at Cross Street Arts, he works on projects with artists and communities in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Since graduating in Fine Art from Reading University followed by post-graduate study in Banff, Canada and London, he has exhibited across the UK, in Canada and the USA. He has curated a wide range of gallery and public art projects and currently manages the exhibitions programme at West Yorkshire Print Workshop.

Martyn’s recent practice explores landscape and the use of watercolour, pastel and collage. Works are often derived from memories, as well as sketchbook studies or photographs, and are slowly built up in the studio. The pictures are as much about the process of painting as ‘finding a view’. Shapes, lines and marks are applied in layers – accumulations of thoughts and images remembered as well as visual recording of things seen.