Martin Kinnear

Biography

Disabled contemporary painter Martin Kinnear (b. Burnley, Uk, based in London) is known for creating thematic shows about self-perception, imperfection and change informed by his experience of physical disability and social exclusion.

Working from poems or ‘word sketches’, Kinnear slowly creates layered and contradictory paintings which explore the role of absences and ambiguity in formulating our self-concept.

Through expressive figurative marks which communicate whilst also withholding narrative, Kinnear intends the visual consumption of his work to reveal the difference between what we appear to be and whom we are echoing Auden’s observation about ‘the flesh the mind insists is ours.

He is best known for large-scale contemporary triptychs featuring optically layered and partially excavated oils, gloss, enamel, dry media and encaustic paints (e.g. Lethe {exh. Regeneration at The Bowes Museum County Durham}, 2022).

Education

MA, Royal College of Art, 2024

Private Collections

Government Art Collection, Downing Street, London, UK,
Durham University Art Collection, County Durham, UK
Martin Kinnear is collected by various private collectors in the UK, Germany, France, Australia, and across the
Commonwealth.

Awards

2023 Chaiya Art Awards (finalist), Exh. South Bank, London, UK
2018 Medaille d’ Argent, Peinture, Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Salon Paris

Press

2024, Featured artist, The Times