By Jeremy Miles

Martyn Brewster stands in his Bournemouth studio. He is bathed in a shaft of winter sunshine that is streaming through the window. Around him are paintings and prints, their vibrant, saturated colours glowing with compelling luminosity in this natural spotlight. This is perhaps the perfect setting to talk about his work. For the studio, at the bottom of Brewster’s garden, is where for the best part of two decades, he has produced a stunning body of work.

It was the presence of this workspace, just yards from the back door of the property he was viewing, that convinced Brewster to buy his house in the backstreets of Southbourne back in 1990. Not only was it exactly what he’d been looking for but, by a stroke of luck, it proved remarkably easy to snap-up. Other prospective buyers it seems had been put off by its one-time use as a chapel of rest and coffin-making workshop.

For Brewster, who was moving from London to the coast, it would prove the perfect base from which to work on his instantly recognisable paintings and silkscreen monoprints. He’s quite proud of his studio’s rather interesting history. “Look, there’s still some stained glass in the windows,” he says. Beneath those windows lies his print-making space. Up a flight of wooden steps is his painting studio. Both, though battered, scuffed and paint-spattered, are painstakingly organised. Such preparation has helped pay dividends.

Praised both nationally and internationally, his works are, with occasional exceptions, brilliantly colourful abstracts. Despite a primary palette in which red, yellow and blue - especially blue - feature again and again, they show extraordinary subtlety and maturity. For Brewster’s art may utilise what for many are the colours of the playroom, but make no mistake, they are seriously grown-up works. They’re exhibited worldwide and lauded by critics. Some of his larger paintings sell for five figure sums.

Whether big and bold or worked on a smaller scale, Brewster’s works invariably show an intuitive painterly intelligence which has been honed by years of study, practice and application into something extraordinary and unique. A loner at art college, he started this journey, which has ignored fashion and trend, when he was still in his early 20s. Now in his mid 50s, he is regarded as one of the most extraordinary talents of his generation.

Although inspired by landscape and nature - it is the English tradition of Constable and Turner that lies at the root of Brewster’s artistic quest - his work as a painter tends to have a more obvious visual connection with abstract expressionism.

As a printmaker however he has moved into another realm. Analysing Brewster’s work is no easy task. It really does speak for itself. You feel it.

This point is made far more eloquently than I could put it in an exceptional new book called simply Martyn Brewster Prints 1975-2007. Apart from stunning reproductions of Brewster’s work, this high-quality publication contains insightful essays by artist, musician and writer Vivienne Light and the former director of Bournemouth’s Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Simon Olding.

Light believes Brewster’s works to be “irreducible” saying: “They stand for themselves… They possess a rhythmic, physical life of their own.” Olding likens them to the mood and sound of improvised jazz and speaks of their “material warmth” and “deep romantic sensibility”. They are both spot on. Martyn Brewster’s art is poetic, evocative and though, utterly unique, seems instantly recognisable.

Brewster himself is delighted with the book, designed by his brother Simon. After months of painstaking work alongside publishers Canterton Books, he says he couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of reproduction, and feels the publication provides a telling overview of the development of his printmaking over the past three decades. “It’s interesting to see things that you didn’t necessarily notice at the time. The twists, the turns, where things have moved on, the good decisions, and some of the experiments that didn’t work.”

Examining the colour plates, he reminds me once again of where his work comes from. “Landscape, nature and living by the sea,” he says decisively. The coastline and places like the New Forest provoke a strong emotional response.” He gestures towards his paintings and prints and, tells me: “In a very subtle way it’s all there.”

Martyn Brewster: Prints 1975-2007 is published by Canterton Books. *For information about Martyn Brewster: Prints 1975-2007 by Vivienne Light and Simon Olding go to www.cantertonbooks.co.uk

Jeremy Miles article was first published in the Daily Echo Bournemouth 02.02.08 Reproduced with thanks.
This article and a video about Martyn Brewster can be viewed at www.bournemouthecho.co.uk