Craig Martin: "Flowers on the Battlefield"

Shook Gallery

May 24, 2025 - September 7, 2025

Craig Martin’s mixed media drawings, consisting primarily of pastel, acrylic, and conté pencil on a wood panel or paper, emphasize the natural floral environment of growth, fragility, and decay. The drawings are created through both direct observation and photo reference. Still, emphasis is always on a creative use of color to expand upon the “natural” view and to reflect an active drawing style. Expressive color, primarily through soft pastel pigments, can many times be un-fixed, suggestive, and intermittent, reflecting the ever-present fluctuations of wind, movement, and light.

In challenging times, the fragility of art objects may be the perfect reminders of what we are in our better selves – much as flowers growing on battlefields can be the perfect reminders of the futility of our tumultuous history in the grand scheme of things.