Martin Alton, artist
Hover over the pictures for their titles
A quiet cul-de-sac in a remoter part of Thames Ditton; a perfectly ordinary suburban house. The man inside commutes to work, the interior is immaculate. You think: unremarkable, orderly, dull, quiet. Inside, on the walls, in a studio room, and in the garage, original works of art confound your perceptions. Some are beautiful, some sombre, some stunning, others disturbing. All wholly unexpected. This is the character, these are the works and the many layers of Martin Alton, a reticent and sincere artist born in Kingston, who has lived in Thames Ditton for twenty-five years and almost succeeded in escaping our attention.
Martin painted from primary school onwards. He trained at Richmond and Twickenham Art College 1975-1979, and to earn his bread took up professional graphic design and illustration of brochures, books, posters and advertisements. This layer of Martin's persona is entirely separated in his mind from the deeper stratum of intensely individual art that has evolved the hard way, in his own time. "I paint because I need to do it," says Martin. "I want to give myself time to paint personally. It helps me to make order out of confusion. The pace of life is too fast, especially within the M25 beltway. The process of painting forces me to take time to reflect on my surroundings and my life, and to filter the impressions I'm bombarded with daily." There is also a reaction to his day job, a need for counterbalance: "Advertising is subliminally manipulative and can be negative in some respects. My pictures are not 'fashionable' - not all is youth and beauty. I try to be honest in my works, and they confront things we may not choose to address in daily life."
To Martin's surprise, galleries seemed to like his pictures and his work sold. 'Pictures' is the word he uses. A picture, Martin explains, "is something I've nailed down. A 'painting' I feel is something more traditional and old fashioned." The first major success, and a picture he then liked, was "Travelling West " - a line of bleak windswept pines against a magnificent sky. But his art has evolved far from this, to personal abstractions of what he sees, mingled with his mindscape. Altons now sell for between £500 and £8000, and his five-piece "Our Own Wilderness" is for sale at £19000. Martin's output is steady rather than prolific. He averages many drawings but scarcely ten pictures a year, and at any one time he may have several works on the go. "It's an organic process. I don't plan on images to paint, or set out to achieve any particular artistic aim, but to create some order out of many things that come to me. I'm simply impelled to paint a picture, and summon up every aspect of my experience: then I feel a fountain of impressions and my picture attempts to make sense of this inner landscape."
Perhaps it's essential therapy. Certainly many of Martin's pictures are complex, darkly portending, disquieting, reflecting enigmas. A solitary oarsman rows his tiny boat out to sea, a note of foreboding in an otherwise restful composite picture of St Just. Is that reclining woman crying out to the sky in pain, or is it ecstasy? Are those dreams we see about the head of a girl, or are they ghosts? Are they the same thing? Martin's work has echoes of the alienation and angst of Sartre. Words gave Sartre the power to rationalise a world from which he felt detached. Painting does the same for Martin. "In life I feel a bit of an Outsider," Martin reflects, "but I think this detachment has advantages for an artist." I ask his wife whether Martin is more at peace while painting; but Sally judges not: "Then he's more driven 
than relaxed." Clearly this is a subject that's come up before. I see a self-portrait of Martin, entitled 'Happy or sad?' So I put the question. "Well," he replies, "I think everyone has these contradictions, and I think I'm probably happy, because I work out the sadness in my pictures." With unassailable logic, he adds ironically: "If I were unhappy, I'd be painting fluffy cats."
Martin is also detached from the '-isms' of Art History and doesn't see himself as part of any tendency, although you might put him within a constructivist philosophy. There are notable influences on his work. Martin's lines are strong and planes are simplified. He admires Picasso, and several of his works, particularly the drawings, are reminiscent of that artist. Although Martin describes his paintings as 'dark', and thematically some are indeed dark, colour is masterfully used as counterpoint and ranges from harmonious tweedy browns and greens to exultant orange and wonderful blues you'd expect from an artist in the tropics; albeit global warming has not yet transformed Thames Ditton to that extent. Martin, half German on his mother's side, likes the German Expressionist school from which he draws both colour and irony. Among contemporary artists he praises Hockney (I had been half-expecting Francis Bacon) for his clarity and honesty. Bonnard is another favourite, and would surely have been proud of Martin's 'Way too blue.'
The bulk of Martin's paintings have been oil on canvas. Increasingly he's drawn to work in three dimensions. He has been surprised to find almost a religious aspect coming through this medium. One of his most recent works, 'Human Cry,' is tautly bound with ropes, spikes piercing a brain prompting thoughts of crucifixion, even Voodoo. Another 3D work, in progress, brings home the mud, agony and confusion of First World War trenches and is inspired by Wilfred Owen's famous ironic poem 'Dulce et decorum est (pro patria mori)'.
After two rich hours, I hoik my coat off the banisters - the only note of disorder in the house has been introduced by me - and pass through the half-glazed front door into a quiet suburban street. And now, a half-glazed, half-solid door becomes a matter for contemplation. It's a privilege to have been allowed in to the sensitive and private world of Martin and Sally Alton. What lies behind these other front doors, I wonder?
Keith Evetts
The works of Martin Alton are regularly shown and sold by the View Gallery, High Street, Thames Ditton and his next exhibition there is in February 2007. You may see more examples of his work here.