About The Artist

Martin Needom is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana and has lived on the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell since 1969. A retired secondary, social studies, and art teacher, he holds a BA in art from Southeastern Louisiana College. Working primarily as a three-dimensional artist, he also works in two-dimensional mixed media, oil, and acrylics as well as monotype print making and photography. His contemporary three dimensional works consist of a variety of materials such as paper, wood, stone, acrylic composite, steel, and bronze. Most two dimensional work reflects his interest in the landscape of coastal Louisiana, and also non objective subject matter.

About The Work

Over the years my predominant form of expression for presentation has been three dimensional.  Many works are metal but others are wood, paper and composites. Most of these are non objective or abstract, occasionally conceptual or figurative. The works are in the round or in low relief constructions.  These works are primarily about the relationships of the parts to the whole, the light and shadow, the solid and the void, and the rhythms that arise from those relationships. They are about what the viewers see as they move relative to the piece. Unlike a painting of a landscape or a piece of figurative sculpture these pieces are themselves the content of the work. The environmental influences of the swamp/bayou and the marsh/lake have become evident in many of my three dimensional works. The trees, grasses, waves, clouds and wildlife have influenced the forms in many of them. While not abandoning those influences I have also begun investigating man made influences within the environment of my community. Continuously through all of my work there are those pieces that are seemingly unrelated to the rest, arising from a need to create and examine new forms and arrangements.

My two dimensional work by contrast usually focuses more directly on wetlands landscape. Over the years large numbers of these have been small gestural sketches and thumbnails in pencil, and ink. Recently I have begun producing monotype images based on the marshland regions of coastal Louisiana. Many of these, like the regions they represent, are minimal in presentation. Although these two dimensional works are more objective, my focus is, as with the sculptural work, on form and composition. Often these are simple statements about my observations of the marsh environment.