News!

Hello –

This is me and my face at the opening of the Paul Guest Drawing Prize last week at the Bendigo Art Gallery..

lmmpgp

crawling_lily_mae_martin
Crawling
By Lily Mae Martin
Ink on paper
105 x 75cm
2016

The opening was fantastic, I was sad kidlet couldn’t make it because she was spewing but it’s OK because
I have been am very proud to say that I am a finalist in the Grafton Regional Gallery’s 2016 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) !!!!!!
And she can come to that one!

untitled2015_lilymaemartin
Untitled
By Lily Mae Martin
77 x 57 cm
Ink on paper
2015

I am really, really pleased and feel so lucky.

Seated Nude – New Drawing

seated_nude_lily_mae_martin

Seated Nude
By Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on paper
2016

It may seem a little haphazard, the way I work. My last finished piece that I posted here was a landscape..

WaterlooForestfinal_lily_mae_martin

…which took me several months to draw ) but I assure you there is a method to the madness!
Sort of.

Such a relief it was, going back to working on the body. I’m trying to work out ways of combining the two – but I am not quite there yet. Though I have heaps of ideas and I am super excited.

Though I love this drawing –

under_skin_under_earth_lily_mae_martin
– my girl in a cave, it was an experiment – I don’t think it quite achieved It. ( Whatever It is, I’m still trying to work that out .. )

This worked –

Morning Song, ink on paper, 76 x 56cm , 2016

Morning Song, ink on paper, 76 x 56cm , 2016

But I am not sure how to make that a series. That’s ok, I still got some nudes to draw in their negative space and some landscapes without figures to finish and then, hopefully, I have worked out a little bit more in my head and with my hands what it is that I am making.

Still, looking through this post alone with the drawings I have made this year I cannot express to you how excited I am about making the new works and how proud I am of what I have already created. Not meaning to sound up myself or nothing – but if there’s no joy in what you do then what’s the point.

My back aches and the nude is fresh off of the board. Time for a tea and some sleep.

New drawing – Waterloo State Forest, view from the back

WaterlooForestfinal_lily_mae_martin

Waterloo State Forest, view from the back
Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on Paper

Waterloo State Forest, view from the back is an exploration of death and grief through the peripheral. Much of my work focuses on the intimate details of the human body, but watching a loved one die can complicate that work. Death is the process of the body shutting down, and documenting that isn’t always possible or right. Waterloo is the documentary of a life passing, and of the lives around it changing, as it is experienced through the landscape: a hushed forest, pitted with mineshafts; the perpetual shifting of light and shadow; the symbiosis of regrowth and decay.