In recent years, Martin Fuller, who is the subject of an exhibition of new work at Austin/Desmond Fine At (Pied Bull yard, 15a Bloomsbury Square, WC1) has been a noted portrayer of the anguished battle between the sexes. Grimacing, priapic figures cavort or conjoin; one had imagined, for some odd reason, that the main impetus behind these works might have been autobiographical. Until recently the artist has been working on a relatively small scale which suited his brand of distinctive calligraphy admirably. Even his slightly larger works had the careless informality of jottings on an envelope or newspaper. It is clear that the artist clings to and cultivates a child like simplicity of means, however grown-up his message may be.
With a move to a new studio, however, he has felt free to expand his scale. Much of the subject matter of this show is fresh also. Where molten glances across louche bars once provided artistic impetus and energy, the artist has switched his attention now to the elementally volcanic. The twisted contours of the earth surface which Fuller encountered in New Mexico and Northern Ireland have become the subject of raw, semi-abstract paintings. Fuller responds not so much to the spirit of landscape as to the vital forces which threw up massive boulders and contorted hill sites. Seemingly stark force or power of any kind fascinates him. The current way of working the artist uses reminds me, largely through its emphatic mark making, of work produced in St Ives during the Fifties and Sixties by artists such as Roger Hilton and Peter Lanyon.
Unlike Lanyon’s, however, Fuller’s approach to the landscape is far from romantic. Moor and desert strike the city-dweller in him often as mysterious or physically menacing. On the evidence of these two shows alone, those who find the art of landscape-painting, boring or devoid of philosophical content should think again.
Giles Auty, The Spectator 1990
