Martyn Brewster Sails into Abstraction with New Paintings of the Sea

Throughout his career, Martyn Brewster has steadily honed his craft, preferring a methodical evolution over the quick pivots that have come to define the art world. “In the past thirty or forty years,” he recently said, “the whole notion of fine art has changed dramatically. Being a painter like me…is completely different from being an artist in the contemporary art world, which is all about marketing and personality.”

Appropriately, Brewster has spent the last two decades comfortably installed in the relatively quiet seaside environs of Dorset, on the southern coast of England. “Dorset has been very important to me,” he has said, citing his move from hectic London as a decision born out of the desire to “paint and make prints but also go for walks and absorb…all the subtleties you get in nature.” From his studio—once an undertaker’s office—he enjoys a quiet kind of fame, drawing inspiration from the nearby jagged rocks while his work is exhibited across the globe.

His most recent show, a solo exhibition at Waterhouse and Dodd in London, indicates a turn away from more figurative landscapes and a movement toward gentle geometric abstractions in reds, blues, and grays.