Prior work on this theme is collected here

Martin Young (2025) Going Places. [Oil on linen, mounted on wood panel] 61 x 61 cm.

A shirtless man sits, facing away from us, though we can see the side of his face. A counter is in the direction of his gaze, with cups and plates on it — suggesting somewhere like a diner or restaurant. A woman in a blue dress and blue nail polish stands to his side, though we only see her arms and her dress. In one hand, she holds hair clippers, and it is clear she has been using them on the man — an awkward patch of his scalp is revealed beneath too-thick hair. Tattoos are shown below, and some look like shipping container labels — fragile, handle with care.

I think this counts as the hardest painting for me to date, and I’m very much not satisfied with it from a “stand-alone” perspective. I suppose I consider it “unfinished” at this point — but time marches and so must I.

That said, I’m happy I pushed myself. I think if I had better references (see below), I could have done better. I think this is pushing me to work with models more directly, and develop specific references instead of cobbling things together, and photobashing. Alternately, putting in the work and improving my drawing ability. To the end of working directly with models, I’ve begun writing up a ‘model callout’/’project definition’ which can be found here. I haven’t published the link anywhere but here, as I work through my confidence levels and anxieties.

I can see the impact of my time working with George Rorris(see below) in the treatment of the man’s back, where I’ve applied and wiped away paint repeatedly in order to build up variety. Dare I say a “dionysian” aspect in the chaos of those paint strokes?

Less successful is the hair, which looks more like fur. Better references would help, of course, but at least I didn’t try to paint every strand — that is another thing I can point to from the workshop: letting the shadows do the work, and not trying to describe. Imply instead.

The ear is awful and needs to be redone.

Table of Contents

Group Show: Jaco Moretti Arts

Notes on my show participation can be found here

Bodies of Work

Aside: To me, as a figurative painter, “Body of work” is such a wonderfully poetic name. I’m sure this thought has been used a million times already.

This theme has started causing my mind to gel around ideas. I can see how I’m pulling ideas from Identity and the Body, as well as Digital Territories, as I work through my paintings for this theme. They become cohesive and coherent.

The final work presented for this theme is part of a larger contemplated project named ‘Spent’. It is built on the works created during Narrative and the Intimate |, expands on them and refines the narrative.

I’d love to continue to refine this project and build it out into something substantial. Perhaps I’ll use my final theme choice to double down here — something for me to talk to my tutor about.

Research and Workshop: George Rorris

I had signed up for an artist-run workshop in Italy in May. I figured I’d learn something, spend time with other artists, and get to relax in the Tuscany countryside. Two of those happened: it was not particularly relaxing. I think I spent fifty hours in one week painting — far more than I normally do, given the pressures of my job.

In that time, I accomplished two paintings, and neither was particularly finished, but oh boy, my brain was exhausted by the end. The painting on the left is what I did in the first 2 days, and following Rorris’ interventions and instructions, the second was the result. More lively, I think? Neither particularly resembles the model, but George said, “Don’t let likeness destroy your model”. Which is hilarious.

Studies of Andrea

Find my research on Rorris consolidated here

Readings

Interesting thought to follow up on:

Lubaina Humid mentions she “paints awkward moments”(A brush with… Lubaina Himid | A brush with…, 2025). This seems similar to what I’m doing in Spent, or at least going towards the same geographic space.

Project: Strange Intimacies

What if I focused my time entirely on developing a body of work? The below might form the guiding articulation. That said, given my result with Going Places, this project seems a bit ambitious. Perhaps a bit beyond my current skill, to realize fully, but it would be a way to really push myself.

Potential Description

In Strange Intimacies, power is exercised quietly: through gestures, transactions, and touch. Each painting isolates a moment of exchange or exposure: a hand offering money, shaving a head, marking a body.

These scenes move between tightly cropped interactions and pulled-back, reflective spaces – moments of tension followed by stillness, ambiguity after action. Visual identifiers – rings, tattoos, nail polish – recur across the works, allowing narrative threads to emerge. Faces remain unseen, but control is negotiated through posture, proximity, and action.

Together, the works form a system of intimacy shaped by use, vulnerability, and quiet imbalance. What’s exchanged isn’t always visible. What’s spent isn’t always money.

Planned Works

The following are my thoughts on the body of work, though as I pull on various threads in the narrative, more paintings manifest. This suggests to me that the theme and narrative have legs — I can build sub-cycles of story within the overall.

  • Receipt of Goods: Two men exchange money; one hand offering, the other grabbing; against a nondescript, shadowed background. The image is a transactional moment, a moment of power and ambiguity, and unclear intent.
  • Shift’s End: A pair of women’s hands rests on a diner table. One hand is holding a wedding ring, the other folded cash. She is identified by her blue nail polish. I want to evoke, or contemplate, a moment of decision and consider the pricetag attached to loss.
  • Going Places: A woman with blue nail polish shaves a man’s head from behind, revealing a field of faded tattoos and a punch-card motif etched into his scalp. The gesture hovers between care and control. Although we cannot see his face, the grey hair sneaking into his temples suggests he is caught in a long-standing pattern.

New Core Works:

  • Mirror Finish: Symmetrical to the composition of Going Places. A businessman is seated in a barber’s chair, reading a newspaper, while a barber refines his already impeccable fade. His gaze drifts downward and left; A visual inversion of the downward-right glance in Going Places. Set in a clean, professional space, this scene suggests both men are marked for service: one as a consumer, the other as a consumable.
  • Redeemable: A tattoo artist inks a fresh circle into a loyalty-style punch card tattoo. The act is clinical and quiet, suggesting compliance, routine, and the unsettling idea that someone, or something, is keeping count.
  • Weight: A lone male figure sits on the edge of a motel bed, silhouetted in the dim light of a large front window. Outside, a car waits – a silent witness to the aftermath of a transaction, or the pause before another begins.

Possible Expansions:

  • Wash Down: Seen from above, the focus is on a man’s foot gingerly stepping into a grimy motel shower. I’d want this to be filled with hesitancy; with judgement and perhaps cleansing? I’d need to think through how to convey this act. Narratively paired with “Weight,” I think.
  • Touch Up: The woman from Shift’s End is applying her nail polish. In the background, on the table, amidst her makeup paraphernalia, is a date book. The annotation “PAID” appears beside items that have been cleanly struck through with a ruled line.
  • Chain Links: A woman drops a ring into a jar already holding several others. We know her by her nail polish and diner uniform. The gesture is quiet: a record of repetition; tracking inventory. A floral design on her apron is dissonant to the implications of the jar.

Inciting spark

Martin Young (2025) Receipt of Goods. [Oil on canvas board] 30.5 x 30.5cm.
Martin Young (2025) Shift’s End. [Oil on canvas panel] 30.5 x 30.5cm.

For the first part of this theme, I set out to create a story within and between two paintings. This resulted in the above two paintings. The rules that guided me were:

  • No faces: Identity had to be carried within the hands, poses and gestures. Any hints shown of the location should provide clues to identity.
  • Presence: Each painting is an interaction between (at least) two parties, even if only one is physically represented.
  • Ambiguity: The story itself happens in the space between what is represented, leaving the viewer to construct the narrative for themselves.

Planning

Process For Going Places

Sketches

Constructing References

Martin Young (2025) Steps 5, Guidance 3, A Man laying in the Grass, II. [Oil. pigment stick & newspaper on panel] 91.5×91.5cm.

Like in Steps 5, Guidance 3, A Man laying in the Grass, II, I leveraged the Generative AI tools to attempt to construct the scene. As much as these tools are incredibly spooky and powerful, they are also extremely imprecise. I found that instead of constructing the scene itself, I had to work in parts and then photobash the results together. This required me to break the scene into parts and generate them separately.

Body Horror

Every foray into these tools starts with body horror, and the works of Francis Bacon. At least in my experience. These were attempts at using something called ControlNet to convert my sketch (seen above) directly into imagery. It is somewhat heartening to see that that doesn’t work by magic.

examples of the hundreds and hundreds of generation attempts

Fighting with AI

Each step took over a hundred different generations in order to get something useful. Once I found a good starting point (first image below), I then used masking techniques to have it regenerate areas of the image. Very imprecise, but enough that I could get somewhere.

The AI never produced satisfactory results for the tattoos, shaving head, etc..

And, again, the AI is very focused on Body Horror as a theme.

Masks