Retired Mexican Bandit
James Martin worked primarily with gouache on brown paper, and sometimes added ink, graphite, charcoal, or collage while framing his own work. His figurative scenes are at first glance humorous, with a myriad of characters from parrots, fish, and monkeys to Shakespeare, Picasso, mermaids, and pilots. A closer read reveals Martin's ingenuity; he often utilized subtle visual word play, veering headlong into topics that without his deft hand might feel weighty. Martin used his free-flowing style of painting to depict a never-ending stream of characters. He certainly wasn't one to shy away from ideas or issues that at the corners of our collective psyche.
The image size for Retired Mexican Bandit is 13 x 13.75 inches in a simple wood frame of 19 x 20 inches with glass, signed in the lower left.
