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.

EXHIBITIONS

SOLO SHOWS/INSTALLATIONS

  • 1990 BEVERLEY ART GALLERY
  • 1992 BAYSGARTH HOUSE MUSEUM, BARTON ON HUMBER
  • 1992 PANNETT ART GALLERY, WHITBY
  • 1992 THE MERCER GALLERY, HARROGATE
  • 1995 ROOM.58, THE SOBRIETY PROJECT, HULL
  • 1998 ROOM.58, GOOLE
  • 2001 ROOM.58, GOOLE
  • 2003 GOOLE ART GALLERY
  • 2003 HEDON MUSEUM
  • 2004 SEWERBY HALL
  • 2007 DEAN CLOUGH GALLERY, HALIFAX
  • 2007 Assemblages, SPURN HEAD LIGHTHOUSE
  • 2007 Photographs, SPURN HEAD LIGHTHOUSE
  • 2007 20-21 VISUAL ARTS CENTRE, SCUNTHORPE. Outside Installations.
  • 2008 SEWERBY HALL
  • 2008 THE DEEP , HULL. ( Rehung with new work, continues in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)
  • 2009 THE POINT, VISUAL ART CENTRE, DONCASTER
  • 2009 20-21 VISUAL ARTS CENTRE, SCUNTHORPE. Assemblages
  • 2009 HAWORTH ART GALLERY, ACCRINGTON
  • 2009 Lost Property, BEVERLEY ART GALLERY
  • 2010 Word works, THE DEEP, Hull
  • 2010 Underwater. Word Works, FERENS ART GALLERY, Hull
  • 2010 Assemblages, CASTLE PARK ARTS CENTRE, Cheshire
  • 2011 Conflict. James Reckitt Exhibition Room, Hull
  • 2011 Poppy Drift, Holy Trinity Parish Church, Hull
  • 2012 Assemblages and Wordworks, Pocklington Arts Centre, East Yorkshire.
  • 2012 The Lost Shoal. Installation at Holy Trinity Church, Hull.
  • 2012 TRENCH, Holy Trinity Poppy Instalation
  • 2013 The Ropewalk Gallery, Lincolnshire.
  • 2013 Five Poppy Installations – Pickering Church – Doncaster Minster – Beverley Minster – Holy Trinity Church Hull – Lastingham Crypt
  • 2013 Thoughts on War – Kingston Art Gallery, Hull
  • 2014 Holocaust – Installation Wilberforce College, Hull
  • 2014 Tyne Cot Cemetery Installation – Belgium
  • 2014 In Memoriam, Beverley Art Gallery
  • 2014 Heroes of Hull – Installation Holy Trinity Church, Hull
  • 2014 Seven Poppy Installations – Holy Trinity Church Hull – Beverley Minster – Ferens Art Gallery – St.Lawrence Church Scunthorpe – Beverley Art Gallery – Goole Museum – The Sesh, Hull.
  • 2015 Ypres Installation, Belgium
  • 2015 In Memoriam – Dean Clough Galleries – Halifax
  • 2015 Two Poppy Installations. LOST AT SEA – Holy Trinity Church Hull, IN MEMORIAM – Beverley Minster
  • 2016 Fallen – Poppy Installation – Bradford Cathedral
  • 2016 Fallen – Poppy Installation – Grimsby Minster
  • 2016 Poppy Installation – Wounded – Beverley Minster
  • 2016 Poppy Installation – Shot At Dawn – Holy Trinity Church Hull
  • 2017 Detritus (revisited) – Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS

  • 2002 “NINE”. BEVERLEY ART GALLERY.
  • 2003 THE CHINK IN THE WALL GALLERY, DEEPDALE, LINCS
  • 2004 “SCULPTURE”, CRESENT ART GALLERY, SCARBOROUGH
  • 2004 ART LINK GALLERY, HULL. Jan22-March3
  • 2004 Fantastic Plastics, “20 21” ARTS CENTRE, SCUNTHORPE
  • 2004 THE DEAN CLOUGH, HALIFAX, Christmas show.
  • 2005 KINGSWOOD GALLERY, HULL
  • 2005 JELLY LEG’D CHICKEN GALLERY, READING
  • 2006 Beneath the Surface. BEVERLEY ART GALLERY.
  • 2007 HULL UNIVERSITY, Hull Arts Circle
  • 2007 HAMMONDS, House of Fraser Windows
  • 2008 ARTLINK, Hull. Mens Work
  • 2009 TRITON GALLERY, SLEDMERE
  • 2009 MiniPrint, ARTLINK, Hull
  • 2010 Kingston Art Group, HULL COLLEGE
  • 2010 DEUTCHE BANK LONDON, Wildlife Trust.
  • 2011 The Passage of Time, Triton Gallery, Sledmere.
  • 2012 Studio 11 Gallery, Hull
  • 2012 Kingston Art Group Show
  • 2013 Kingston Art Group Show
  • 2014 Kingston Art Group Show
  • 2015 Hull Art Circle Group Show
  • 2015 Kingston Art Group Show
  • 2015 INPRINT Exhibition, Hull
  • 2016 Sister Cities 30 Anniversary Exhibition – Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
  • 2016 Summer Show – Ropewalk Gallery – Barton upon Humber
  • 2017 Ferens Open Exhibition – Hull

AWARDS / POSITIONS / EVENTS

  • 2005 The Beaulah Trophy for Sculpture
  • 2007 Artist in Residence Spurn National Nature Reserve. (1 Year)
  • 2007 Ilkley Literature Festival, fringe event
  • 2009 Community artist for Arts in Health, Hull NHS trust
  • 2010 The Vincent Galloway Portrait Cup
  • 2014 Speaker at Seminar at Abby Walk Gallery, Great Grimsby
  • 2015 The Dennis Booth Cup
  • 2015 INPRINT ,Hull, Award winner

COMMISSIONS / COLLECTIONS

  • 2010 Humber Mouth Literature Festival, Word works, Hull.
  • Dean Clough Collection

COLLECTION

  • R & A Miles, London.
  • B M Tiffney, N. Yorkshire.
  • Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax.

 

POPPY INSTALLATION ARTISTS STATEMENTS

“2012 TRENCH”

Remembrance poppy installation at Holy Trinity Parish Church, Hull, East Yorkshire.

10000 poppies laid out on the floor of the church, accompanied by other artwork exploring his thoughts on war.

The piece is suggestive of the trenches of the 1st world war but also the mass graves still being found today. Visitors are welcomed to come and place a poppy in the installation as an act of remembrance for those fallen in wars past and present.

“2011 POPPY DRIFT”

An installation by artist Martin Waters in Holy Trinity Parish Church, Hull.

 

The installation created on the floor of the church, with the help of many donations of remembrance poppies, is in response to my feelings towards war. I wanted to create something large enough to describe the immense empathy people have towards those killed in or as a result of war and conflict, including civilians. I wanted to emulate the poppies growing in the fields of Flanders after the battles of the First World War. Walking through the poppy drift allows the person to enter its creation and be part of the artwork not an onlooker, which then leads you past the many older war memorials on the walls and windows of the church.

 

The words of the old memorials echo my thoughts as I walk through the beautiful building, solemn and sad yet heroic and commemorated, lost but still loved.

 

“in thankful remembrance of those citizens of Kingston-upon-Hull who laid down their lives in defence of their country in the war”

“fell whilst leading his men”

“killed whilst resisting the great assault”

“died from wounds received at the battle”

“who served in peace and war”

“their names are recorded below that their memory might not perish”

“lest we forget”

“when you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today”

 

Why not join me in laying down your own remembrance poppy?

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