Martin Cosgrove
Artist
Martin Cosgrove is an accomplished fine artist whose particular passion is painting with oils. His paintings hang on walls across the UK, from North America and Europe to Australia. He can trace his roots in Keighley back nine generations to 1720. He is interested in studying and painting landscapes, the human form and to a lesser extent still life. Given his medical background he underpins his work with his studies in human perception and colour. The key influences on his painting style are Cezanne, Modigliani, Monet, Morendi, Picasso, Rothko, Sorolla, Turner, Uglow and Zorn. His own artwork is quite physical, he said:
“I like working in oils. I know they are a bit old fashioned, but I much prefer it to acrylic. There's something very physical about the whole process of painting for me. I use a palette knife as much as I use a brush, particularly for landscapes”.
Like most artists, he spends a lot of time drawing, and for this uses pencil and
charcoal. Although he has worked as a medical doctor he has always been interested in art.
“I've done lots of things in life and I've explored every avenue that I was interested in,” - “I treat life a bit like a three-year-old at Christmas, full of curiosity - I have always been creative from as long as I can remember. It's the very essence of my being.”
Career prior to art:
Martin grew up in Bradford. Although interested in art at school, he was also interested in the sciences and languages. As he went through school, he focused more on these academic subjects while continuing painting and drawing at home, dropping art at school at the age of 14.
“At sixteen I chose pure sciences and then went to Sheffield to study medicine. During my training, while other people were learning using words and essays, because I am a very visual thinker, I was using drawings and diagrams to understand. That's how I link things together and learn.”
After further training to become a GP, he joined the Royal Air Force as a doctor for eight years and, amongst other places was posted to Hong Kong and Northern Ireland. After leaving the RAF, he worked as a GP in Cambridge then as a doctor in industry.
Martin enrolled on an art foundation course at Cambridge Regional College, gaining a distinction for his fine art prints in 2013. He said:
“They were very accommodating to the older artists. Again, I was like a kid in a in a sweet shop. I just I just went for it. Apart from a lot of time drawing in the life room, I focussed on printing, with screen printing and collagraphs being the two main techniques.”
Keighley Portrait and Life Drawing Group:
Martin returned to Yorkshire in 2013 and continued to work part time for a short while as a doctor in Leeds and Bradford. He created his own studio in Idle in 2016 and later set up an afternoon portrait and life-drawing group in Keighley in October 2023, complementing and working with Jane Fielder’s evening life group. The classes have been very successful and run twice a month. Martin’s main focus with the group is currently portraiture with some ad hoc life drawing when the demand is there.
“I'm a great proponent of using the techniques of drawing on the right side of the
brain,”
Martin said. The method, championed by Californian artist Betty Edwards, is based on the notion that the brain has two ways of perceiving and processing reality: one verbal and analytic, the other visual and perceptual.
“So, the first thing that is really important, is to be silent during the session,” - “Absolutely silent. “The second thing is that the people who are drawing are encouraged not to name the part of the body that they're drawing. So, they don't draw “a nose”; they don't draw 'an eye' because your left brain thinks that it 'knows exactly what an eye looks like,' when actually it doesn’t, and as a result it all comes out completely wrong. And so, you don't name, you draw what you see: a light; a darkness; lines and mass. Where's the light? Where's the dark? - You don't need to put all that much detail in there either. In many ways it's best to leave things out rather than put too much detail in. To allow the viewers brain to do the filling in of the spaces to make sense of it. Sometimes the best thing to do is get an eraser and rub out stuff, leaving a ghost like impression in sections of the drawing. Using an eraser is actually just as useful as using your pencil.”
“I don't make a profit from the group, I’m actually subsidising it quite a lot, but it's well worth it… it’s wonderful to support people to flourish and grow”.
Martin concluded, “The group is an absolute joy. I’ve had people attend who've never drawn before, who have just come alive, absolutely come alive with it. Give them a piece of paper and a pencil and they’re off on a great adventure .” Martin is happy to take enquiries from people who would like to know more about the group either as a potential sitter (model) for the portrait group or as one of the attendees.
Gallery
