Martin Poppelwell

Martin Poppelwell, born 1968, is a full-time artist based in Hawke’s Bay who studied at Elam School of Fine Arts and University of Auckland, and also studied later under potter Ross Mitchell-Anyon in Whanganui. Since then he has exhibited works locally and nationally in private galleries as well as public art institutions. Graphic and illustrative, Poppelwell’s work deftly negotiates a titanic range of media and commissions. Installations, oil, printmaking, watercolour, printmaking, ink, acrylic, enamels, varnish, canvas, paper and clay have all been manipulated and made fodder for Poppelwell’s voracious practice. Drawing is central to all of Poppelwell’s works and the line or a schematic outline is constantly utilised. Frequently Poppelwell’s works are layered up, from clay or canvas, to glaze and underpainting, to thick irregular outlines, sketches, text and colours. Poppelwell’s work ranges from large-scale paintings to placings of onomatopoeic shards of pottery, shattered fragments with comic book like bubbles of text or speech. Poppelwell’s painted squiggles also correspond to roughly modelled ceramic figurines. Tradition and functionality of pottery are toyed with, Poppelwell combines the literal with the literary as he renders vases, jugs, bowls and plates blank pieces of paper which he then marks with his idiosyncratic vernacular.