Martin, Raymond

Technique : Oil

Crédit photo : Frédéric Gayer

Raymond Martin was born in Lac-à-la-Croix (Lac-St-Jean) in Quebec in 1958 and has lived in Moncton, New Brunswick for the past twenty years. In 1981, he received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Ottawa, and in 1986 obtained a master's degree in psychology from Moncton University. He has been painting for many years and currently works as a child psychologist.

“Raymond Martin transposes the beauty and wonder of the world into remarkable paintings, their simplified contours and their flattened views resonate like material analogies of the unconscious, the mythical and the spiritual. Lines engraved in thick impasto accompany us while we walk along the labyrinth of pathways filled with decorative motifs in a non-linear space-time that resembles a waking dream.

As a spontaneous and intuitive expression of the awakened child inside, Martin's art can be linked to such “childlike” works of twentieth-century artists like Picasso, Klee and Dubuffet. As part of Moncton's Acadian arts scene, his work shares affinities with the “Neofolk” paintings of Yvon Gallant, Nancy Morin and Francis Coutellier. Integrating a deep awareness of the psychological power and magic of children's drawings, his enchanted vision poetically fuses the Cartesian split between the inner human consciousness and the objective reality of the outside world.”

Excerpts from Terry Graff's “The Enchanted Vision of Raymond Martin”, January 1994

Public and private collections

• Raymond's paintings are part of many important public collections, including the Canadian Council Art Bank, Foreign Affairs Canada, the New Brunswick Art Bank and the Beaverbrook Gallery collection. His works are also found in several corporate and private collections.