Martin Marley

Short Biog

My undergraduate study was in Belfast College of Art where I studied Three-Dimensional Design with a specialism in Furniture Design. This was primarily a design programme with a strong focus on material and construction process. Therefore, we were to encouraged to make everything that we designed. After college I stared work in Kilkenny Design Workshops as a Furniture Designer working with local furniture manufactures and associated craft makers. During my time at KDW I moved into retail design, merchandising and the product design of household items. From KDW I moved, for several years, into the role of overseas design consultant to aid and assist the development of craft-based products for export in developing countries such Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, Ghana, Pakistan, Barbados, and Kosovo. I have been working in education for almost thirty years, primarily in IADT Dunlaoghaire in the areas of Graphic Design, Modelmaking/Digital Effects and Production Design. During this period, I completed my Masters in Digital Developments in Education from Limerick University. From a more personal perspective the artist within me has always been searching for more expressive ways of creating work and that is when I found clay. Working with clay give me the freedom to explore the material and to create forms of a non-functional nature. The freedom to feel a form before it is created in the mind is a truly liberating and my thoughts and efforts turned to figurative work and sculptural forms. During a residency at Vallauris, France I had time to explore the idea of the figurative form and I had the opportunity to work with many different clays and finishes. Since the residency I have continued to explore figurative forms with a focus on male heads and torsos.