Michael Craig-Martin Evaluation

                                                                                   Subject Matter:

This piece of art work is known as pop art as the letters overlap each other with an outline of a globe on top of the letters. The letters spell ‘NEWS’ and the globe on top of it represent different news announcements that are heard every day around the world. It could be suggested that the colours of the letters are all different as hot and cold colours represent different types of news such as war in comparison to a royal baby being born.

Technique:

Though Craig-Martin overlaps the letters here, he is known for paintings which include no tone but instead flat bold colours. The composition consists of straight neat lines for the letters and an outline of a globe overlapping ‘NEWS’ which gives a short and instant message. This art work has been painted using acrylics which I have also used.  

Artists Career:

Michael Craig Martin was born in Dublin (Ireland) in 1941 on 28^th August and died at the age of 71. He was born in the year in which Dublin was bombed as well as during the World War II. Craig-Martin was educated in the United States where he studied Fine Arts and Architecture at Yale University. From 1966, he moved to England permanently to teach.

Links with Own Work:

Personally, I dislike Craig-Martin’s work as it doesn’t interest me instantly due to his no-tone colours and neat lines. I prefer work with different uses of tones and shapes rather than straight lines and flat use of colours. In addition, he uses heavy and tame colours which are not appealing to the eye from my point of view. However, one really interesting part of his work that does interest me is the fact that he increases and decreases objects that wouldn’t be of that scale, such as a safety pin is scaled much larger than a ladder as shown in the picture below, which I have tried to replicate in my work in his style.