about

Martin’s off-grid home and studio

Making art from and about the land

Martin Foster grew up on the farm where his father worked in West Sussex. After spending his own career in magazine production and design, he has returned to the land to live off-grid and make art from and about the environment around him.

“After 40 years working in the commercial and increasingly hi-tech publishing industry,” he says, “I felt drawn to a more grounded, low-impact lifestyle and to the other end of the creative spectrum; a low-tech, more expressive practice.”

Martin lives today in a cabin on a friend’s 12-acre smallholding near Totnes, where he makes abstract paintings inspired by the landscape that also provides him with food, energy and water.

“I find inspiration on the land where I live, working with the forms and textures around me as they are turned by the seasons,” says Martin. “And I find materials here too: clay pigment dug from a pond at the bottom of the hill; charcoal made from willow I cut from the coppice I can see from my cabin window; and home-made brushes and other tools I make from plants in the hedgerows around my home. Even the water comes from a borehole on the land.

“Making my own materials from resources around me creates a strong link between the land and my practice – and also satisfies my anti-consumerist, low-impact ethos.”