ABSTRACT
Martin was an American abstract expressionist painter, famous for her pared back line paintings. Princenthal reminds me that: “Martin called her creative source ‘inspiration’ and she said that the paintings came to her as visions, complete in every detail, and needed only be scaled up before being realised”. As Martin says, “But then to actually accurately put it down, is a long, long way from just knowing what you are going to do”. Martin thought of inspiration as a gentle spirit: “That which takes us by surprise – moments of happiness – that is inspiration”, and she regarded inspiration “as a universal attribute available to all and that if we can get out of the way of our own intellectualism and get in touch with our inner instinct, a bodily process that we need to allow to speak”.
