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Abstract Surrealist / San Diego, California
Martin Sklar was raised on the east coast. At the
age of 18, he left Philadelphia to live in North Carolina,
then New Orleans, and later settled in Chicago for nearly
ten years. He was an electro-mechanical engineer since
1994, but because of his love for painting and creating,
as well as encouragement from a growing fan base; he
moved to San Diego in 1999 to build a career as an artist.
Tattoo art inspired Martin to work with ink. He then
developed a technique using ungessoed canvas, applying
ink and acrylic to create a unique rustic feel, combined
with “pop art” style. He characterizes his
style as abstract surrealism, blending abstract forms
and color, with surreal representation to reveal concepts
and ideas. It’s a very detailed and deliberate
technique, which has to be applied in coats, or layers.
This helps him to control color, tones, and shading.
The more layers, the stronger the color and shading
becomes. Ink is never completely opaque. Therefore,
there is no way to cover mistakes, so each stroke has
to be deliberate. Lots of brush work is needed to control
bleeding, creating shallow grooves to contain the ink.
Whites, in order to be bright enough or be more pure,
may need a little help. Martin then will add acrylic
paint, or white chalk to the white ink to get his desired
effect.
The majority of his work is ink and ink /acrylic mix
on ungessoed canvas, however, he also paints in oils
on traditional gessoed canvas. There is a soft flow
to his compositions filled with interconnecting images,
that to him, represents the unbreakable connection between
all things in the universe.
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