An eye for detail
Joshua A. Martin, Cardinal in Winter, oil, 30 x 40.
This story was featured in the February 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
WHEN SEEKING wildlife subjects to photograph and later paint, Joshua A. Martin generally doesn’t need to look beyond his own yard in Norman, OK. In this town 20 miles south of Oklahoma City, Martin’s rural surroundings provide a quiet space for rabbits, deer, and other creatures to romp, roam, and graze. Often, the artist doesn’t even need to step outside his front door to capture a great reference shot. “Most of the photos I’ve taken have been of birds and other animals I see outside my window,” he says.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Cotton the Kitten, oil, 8 x 10.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Blue Jay in Autumn, oil, 8 x 10.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Box Turtle in Grass, oil, 8 x 10.
Martin’s oil paintings themselves are photorealistic, prompting some curious observers to ask why he creates works that resemble photographs “if I can just take photos,” he says. It’s a fair question to which the artist has a simple answer: “I like making something look better than a photo. I can make things stand out more,” he explains. And with his oils, he adds, “You see the quality of the paint.”
In his lifelike representations of critters both big and small, Martin enjoys intensifying color and creating texture on his canvas. These painterly effects help amplify the details he meticulously captures in everything from a turtle’s ribbed shell to a lizard’s leathery scales. Likewise, feathers, fur, and whiskers are convincingly rendered with care and precision. A newly minted Signature member of Oil Painters of America, Martin gar-nered an Award of Excellence last November at OPA’s Western Regional Exhibition for COTTON THE KITTEN. The painting’s star—a tiny, green-eyed feline—seems ready to pounce on something beyond the picture plane. The background itself is loosely painted and even blurred in some areas, a tactic the artist frequently employs to direct viewers’ attention to his animals.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Rabbit in the Woods, oil, 10 x 8.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Collared Lizard, oil, 8 x 10.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Cardinal in Spring, oil, 30 x 40.
Martin gained a firm grasp on lighting, balance, and other key design principles as a graphic-design student at Moore Norman Technology Center, and he also studied oil painting with artist Carol Armstrong. But it’s his lifelong practice of drawing that has been most influential, notes the artist, whose paintings require anywhere from 150 to 1,000 hours to complete. “One of the things I’ve been doing is recording time-lapse videos of my whole process of painting,” says Martin. “People enjoy watching the process and seeing something being created.” Of course, if the artist just took photos of his subjects, that’s a process we’d never get to observe or appreciate. —Kim Agricola
representation
www.joshmart.com
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- Joshua A. Martin, Turkey in the Weeds, oil, 24 x 18.
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- Joshua A. Martin, End of the Road, oil, 12 x 24.
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- Joshua A. Martin, Squirrel Under Bush, oil, 10 x 8.
This story was featured in the February 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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