Martin Wilson (artist)
Martin Wilson is a visual artist, based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. A graduate of the National Art School in Sydney in 1994, Martin works primarily in painting and textile media. Among his most prominent works is The Fuzzy Prime Ministers – a series of latch-hook rug portraits of each Prime Minister of Australia. The series was created to mark Australia’s Centenary of Federation in 2001 and was exhibited at Object Gallery in Sydney[1] during the Sydney Festival, the National Portrait Gallery (Australia) in Canberra[2] and regional art galleries throughout Australia. Following his election in November 2007, a portrait of Kevin Rudd – the 26th in the series – was first shown at the Flinders Street Gallery in Sydney. Martin’s other major works include Blue Budgie on Pink (2003)[3] and Raw Prawn (2007).[4] In April 2009 at the University of Newcastle Gallery, Martin presented Post (2009), a series of rug portraits of Australia Post workers for the Making Our Times exhibition,[5] which he also co-curated with Jason Martin of the Flinders Street Gallery. Martin has exhibited extensively in artist-run spaces in Newcastle, Melbourne and Brisbane and was co-founder and co-director of Newcastle artist-run space Rocketart from 1999 to 2004.