Artist
Colin Martin
Colin Martin is an artist and lecturer based in Dublin. He is currently Head of the RHA School and lectures part time in the NCAD Media Department. He is a graduate of TU Dublin and NCAD. He is a leading voice in representational painting and his current practice is concerned with the intersection of analogue painting with digital and technological cultures. The practice explores spaces that blur boundaries between the real and virtual and where technology, culture and politics have become synthesized.
Martin is currently preparing for a touring solo exhibition entitled Empathy Lab which will be exhibited in the Centre Cultural Irlandaise, Paris in September 2023 and tour to the Highlanes gallery in Drogheda in 2024. He has exhibited widely in both Ireland and internationally and most recently in group exhibitions The Art Of Sport Butler Gallery Kilkenny 2023, We Are Here, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda 2022, Woman In The Machine Visual, Carlow, Dubliners, Zagreb, HDLU, Mestrovic Pavillion 2021, Locations of Estrangement, Gibbons and Nicholas, Art Projects, London Art Fair 2020 , Moving Spaces , Glucksman Gallery, Cork 2019, Syntonic State, Tulca, Surveille.e.s Centre Cultural Irlandaise, Paris, House Taken Over, Private House, Belfast 2018, This is Not Architecture, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 2017, Far From Me, Josef Fillip Gallery, Leipzig , N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Interview Room 11, Edinburgh 2016. He is a multiple recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary which he received major awards in 2022/2021/2020/2015/2012 and 2007. He received the RCSI Award in 2021 and is currently working on a major public art commission for Fingal Arts. Martin elected a full member of the RHA since 2008. His work is many public and private collections such the Arts Council, UCC, OPW, Fingal Arts and the RHA.
Martin has been an active participant and advocate in the Irish visual arts cultural landscape acting as the chairperson in Black Church Print Studio where he initiated projects such as Black Church Process (an initiative to produce collaborations with artists and master printmakers and the A&E public talk series). He has been member of the RHA Council and Programme Board and has initiated public talk series, national and international artist master classes, drawing groups, Critical Correspondence Courses and structured skill workshops for artists at the RHA. He has served as a judge on the RDS Graduate Award Panel, Marmite Prize for Painting, Arts Council Peer review, This Is Art and the British Institute Fund. He has curated exhibitions ‘What is and What Might be’ and ‘This is Not Architecture’ at the Highlanes Gallery and ‘Real Real’ at the Waterford Municipal Gallery. Martin has been a regular contributor to VAI Newsletter and has been a speaker on many artist panels such We Need To Talk About Painting at the Complex 2022 and Dubliners, Zagreb 2021.