Artist Statement

Since I paint realistic pictures, I have always been intrigued by the way light plays across an object to give it a sense of volume and form. I love the challenge of trying to create a convincing three-dimensional image on a two dimensional surface. I strive to show the temperture, the time of day and the very essence of the person or place I am painting by the way I juxtapose warm and cool colors and hard and soft and lost and found edges. It is not the question of just copying a photograph or a sketch. I try to interpret my reference material so that a feeling is conveyed that invokes a memory of a time when life seemed to be more slow and simple.

I paint the people and places of central PA, but they could be people or places from anywhere in the country. I strive for a timeless quality in my subject matter so that the scene could be a moment captured from the 19th, 20th, or 21th century.

Jeffrey Martin attended Susquehanna University. Following his graduation he attended classes at the Art Students League of N.Y. for two years. He received his MFA in 1986 from the State College of Pennsylivia. He has taught art at Susquehanna University for approximatly ten years and has given a number of art workshop.

He was elected a Master Pastellist by the Pastel Society of America in 1998, only one of eighty eight artist so honored. He has had an article published, "Tips for Portrait Painters" in American Artist Magazine. For the past number of years he has focused on his commissioned portraits. He has portraits hanging at West Point, M.I.T., Perdue Univ., Northwestern, Universities of Minnnesota, Texis and Louisville. Aumber of his portraits hang on Capital Hill and in all the Federal Courthouses in central Pa.