Martin Finnin

It’s been a while since I have tidied the studio, so today was the day. There is no doubt that the place is much better than when I started, but it’s still a mess all the same. I have always admired artists that have all their paint sorted according to hues. Brown tubes of paint lying next to red, then comes orange, maybe yellow? It all moves along like an ordered colour chart, and you know exactly where to place …

This episode of the vlog is a prime example of the non-linear path of any creative endeavour. You see me introduce working on paper alongside oil painting. My mind skips from flying tiger motifs to self-portraits and back to abstract painting, all in a single day. Getting lost in the process is a great way to access another level of creativity and distract myself from what …

Have you ever wondered what it's like to work as an artist? I have had my first painting exhibition 30 years ago and have been a full-time painter since. I have been hanging out in studios all my life, and I still love looking at other artists' studios, watching them create, seeing what books they read or how they use their materials. This past year of lockdown living has been …

I made that splash precisely a year ago today. And what a year it’s been. I wanted to splash things from a height for a long time. Somehow New Year’s Eve 2019 was the perfect time. I remember stealing into the studio and making two cerise type pinks balanced with an apple green as my flying colours. I laid the large canvas flat on the ground and went upstairs to set up my ammunition. Then I let fly with the pink, just abandoning…

The garden around the shed I paint in has slowly changed colours and shapes since I began working there back in March. It was bound to influence my work in some way. I feel like I want to paint flowers. Not in a photographic way but so can allow nature into these new paintings. I don’t analyse it, just let it roam wherever it wants…

I found this book 25 years ago on the floor of a train going from Dublin to Limerick. I love the cigarette burn and old ticket from London to Southampton used as a bookmark. The author was born in Paris in 1918 and was the youngest son of René Gimpel, the well-known art dealer from that time. He had an exciting life and having read his book, I get the feeling he would rather be in a car crash than share a meal with an artist. If he had …

Late on Wednesday night I began drawing shapes with ink. I had an idea of what I wanted to try on a big canvas yesterday I just went for it.

I looked at it this morning and it looks ok -ish.I am never sure how these things will work out. The sculptures on the table are shapes that hopped…

I started making things. They could be three-dimensional drips or unskilled brushstrokes that invade the space in and around the paintings like a crude stage set.

‘Space is the breath of art’ - Frank Lloyd Wright

I was going through some boxes of drawings and I found a sealed package of tiny etchings that I forgot about. I am going to paint on them while I wait for the large oil on canvases are drying in the studio.