Martin Waters
ARTIST STATEMENT

Artists statement for Beverley Art Gallery.

“Beneath the Surface” exhibition. 2006

I have been collecting stuff for most of my life but in the last few years I have made artworks specifically about these collections and the detritus found at Spurn Point. The link I am making with archaeology is the discovering, collecting, recording, arranging, mounting and displaying of the found objects. Other aspects of the work are my fascination with disguarded items and the life they may have had before, photographed, frozen in time, to be given another life as an art work. Gloves have a special place in my work; I think it is the connection with protection and the human contact, the wearer having perhaps left their mark in some way. What was the previous owner like, what did they do, where did they live?

COLLECTIONS - COLLAGE - ENVIRONMENTAL ARTWORK - TOTEMS

My work is concerned with the elemental nature of existence and the transient form of natural and manufactured objects.

Importance is placed with the elemental effects on natural and manmade materials from exposure to the sea. They are evidence of the power of natural forces to change this detritus into unique special objects of great beauty for their own sake.

Special objects? Why? When glancing at the pebbles on the beach, do we find an individual stone so personally exciting or uniquely appealing? Seeing the object through an artists’ eye I feel it stands for itself and should perhaps be displayed individually or as a collection, not altered or used to create a pictorial image.

A lifelong preoccupation with collecting and the nature of sequence and repetition cannot be separated from my work.

The form we occupy today as human beings is only transient and our desperate efforts to halt the process………. A reluctance to accept our own mortality?

The environmental artwork at Spurn relates to the stark environment, the groynes, the lighthouse, movement, the disintegration and destruction, the ebb and flow, the organic nature of the space, a homage to the creative force Spurn evokes in me.

The items were all gathered from one particular stretch of coastline, Spurn Head in East Yorkshire, a fast eroding and disappearing peninsular.

Martin Waters



An Exhibition of Photographs

I have chosen to include three areas of my photographic work, coastal landscapes, found objects and images of artwork, all discovered or created on Spurn Point.

Landscapes

The landscapes try to portray some of the atmosphere of Spurn as I feel it, cold and barren at times, warm and inviting at others. The ever-changing light and weather tell very different stories.

Found Objects

Found objects fascinate me and form the basis of my collage and assemblage art. The variety and quantity of detritus I find help me to create something new, their colour and appearance often changed by contact with sea and sand only serve to enhance the image, rekindling life and meaning to a disgarded object.

Beach Art

The beach art is a direct response to the environment within which I am working. Spirals, wave forms and realistic imagery have suggested the artwork, together with my thoughts on life’s cycle, resulting in the finished piece.

These show part of the process of how I think about and create my artwork. It is important for me not to impose on the landscape, but to try and harmonise with it. The process of change, growth and decay at Spurn Point is witnessed and recorded in the photographs, capturing fleeting moments in the passage of time. The semi-permanent land art forms echoing the fragile briefness of life and the changing landscape that for me is Spurn Point

Martin Waters

Artist in Residence at Spurn Point Lighthouse



CV

Born 1955, In Hull, East Yorkshire
Educated At Hull College Of Art, Then At St. Albans College Of Art & Design, Gaining A Post Graduate Diploma In Art Therapy.

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