Meet Daniel Martin
02/07/2025, written by Maya Hoisington.
On the first floor of the Made In Stirling store, behind the doors of painter Daniel Martin’s studio, there is nothing but light and wonder. Getting ready for an upcoming exhibition, the walls display his self-described “organic” oil paintings. They vary in size and colour, but all have the shared feature of being transformed into a representation of Daniels' soul through a conversation between himself and the canvas.
Daniel first connected with art in his childhood, taking the subject for standard grade in high school and dreaming of being a comic book illustrator. However, he first found work as a drummer until his mid-twenties. Staying in London during this time in his life, Daniel eventually lost heart for the music industry and fell out of love with the drums, which led to him moving back up to Scotland. It was whilst he was splitting shifts in a bistro and training to be a chef in the Highlands that he bought lots of art supplies, began experimenting and rediscovered his love of art. Daniel had only ever worked with pens and acrylics but felt drawn to try oil paints and, through pure experimentation, quickly fell in love. Through making a lot of mistakes, experimenting and plenty of pieces ending up in the bin, Daniel ultimately mastered the skill; finding artistic freedom in the process.
He exclusively works with oil paint, finding it “more forgiving than a lot of people give it credit for”, allowing him to blend nicer than he would with acrylics. This, paired with the fact that oil paints take longer to dry, Daniel is gifted time to work with them, not being held back like he otherwise would be with acrylic paints. Considering it to be most customisable to his needs, he paints on top of wood, cutting it to size for commissions or what he wants to try that day. After the wood is coated in at least 3 or 4 coats of primer, he gets stuck in and allows himself to paint what he wants, allowing it to come from the heart. Sometimes he tries something that doesn’t work or is to his satisfaction and just wipes it off and tries again. Through this process, he likes to get his paintings done in one sitting, often soundtracked to a wide range of music that stems from what mood he is in that day. Daniel lets the tempo of a song dictate how he moves his brush. When he started creating oil paintings, they were place-specific; interpretations of Loch Ness or the Isle of Arran which have now evolved into pieces that he feels reflect whatever mood he gets up in the morning with. Not always certain when a painting is finished and fighting the temptation to add more, Daniel likes to view his artwork from different perspectives. “So say there was a mirror on the other side of the room, I'd look in the mirror to see how it looks. That gives you a different perspective of it. But often just take time away, come back, and I'll know.” Another method he uses is by taking a picture of the piece and putting the image behind a black or white background to envision how it looks framed.
Over time, Daniel has grown quite comfortable discarding work. “I'm quite ruthless to be honest. There was a flood in my old studio over a year ago. I had to chuck a load of work, so that was really cathartic. Some of it I liked, some I didn't really care much about, but I just thought, you know what, on you go”. He does recognise that he its supplies, costs and time that are getting discarded, but when it comes down to it takes a lot of energy to paint and not all of his ideas and leaps of faith will pan out. There’s been times, after returning to a piece he dislikes, that Daniel realises he can recycle it into a smaller piece by trimming away all sections but the area he likes. “That's something that's grown over time and built in almost like your self-confidence that you're okay with doing that. Nothing does have to be perfect first time. It's the same for most creatives, isn't it? Writers might just rip a page out, start again, or musicians when they do an album and they want 12 songs and they've got 20 and they cut 8 of them. So yeah, I'm kind of just used to doing that”.
Being only human, Daniel is honest about how he often feels self-doubt and that’s when imposter syndrome takes over his brain. Just recently, he bought 60 frames needed for his exhibition and started to question his abilities. “You think, am I good enough? And then I look at some of the pieces that I'm really proud of and I think, well yeah, because I did that and I love it, even if this one isn't as good or it's, today I don't like it as much, but tomorrow I might.” Previously, Daniel had felt like he had change his work to best fit the needs of commissions, losing himself in the process, “I used to take on pretty much anything I could get because I was starting out and I needed to pay my bills. But I found it so stressful and people would ask for things that I wouldn't actually want to do. So now I'm really particular about what commissions I take on, because with my experience with the music industry and falling out of love with something that I really love to do I don't want to fall out of love with painting for similar reasons”. Similarly, over time, he has grown more comfortable and confident working with galleries, understanding that there are some out there that aren’t a good fit for him and his work. “I'll always have a conversation with them on the phone, you can tell a lot from usually if they're being honest, genuine. I've got a list of questions that I tend to ask, even like practical things like when do I get paid to be sell a piece, what space will I get, and what will the proceeds split be?”
Seeing his paintings as a piece of him, Daniel found that having his studio above the Made In Stirling store invaluable, “I couldn't do what I'm doing without it. The team here are really accommodating. There was a flood, my old studio got trashed due to external factors, but Alsiter from Made in Stirling built me a new studio up here which is brilliant and greatly appreciated. He adds that, “It's a community feel. You know everyone in that shop downstairs is kind of part of the same family. Local, and there's comfort in that. There's so much out there, locally. They (Made In Stirling and Creative Stirling) want to make art accessible and everybody should see it and be able to even buy it!”.
Looking towards the future, Daniel aspires to start involving himself in the music industry again, collaborating with musicians to create artwork for their album covers, tour posters and LP sleeves. Having already dipped his toes in the water by designing the album cover for London-based band Gernsligner, he is eager to try more. “I wanted to be a drummer, so I did that even though I knew it's not necessarily going to be stable. I just did what I wanted to do because that's the most important thing for me and then when I fell in love with the drums, which I'm finding again in a wee way but not in a professional sense, I wanted to paint and I was terrible at it, but I just really wanted to paint, so I just kept doing it.”