Martin Layton says : " Expressing emotions feelings and experiences. Using whatever is available to me to create an image that expresses my inner thoughts. A play on words, using the media and everyday occurrences and more recently, traveling through Namibia
all reflect in my work. An appreciation of wide open spaces
and fascination of objects man made or otherwise, actual or imagined combine to create an image which at times may confuse or provoke thought. My motivation is not to create ”pretty pictures” but to create an image with lasting impression that the viewer can relate
to and appreciate long after the initial viewing."

Could this be why Ray Mhlaba chose to present Martin’s painting
of 'Symphony for the Devil' to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands? Billed as ‘The Perfect Gift’ by the Eastern Cape media it is apt this work should reflect a crisis of re-vision and faith. Layton’s recent exploration into The Aard Appel (Aart Appel) is an elemental pursuit, one that leads the artist’s expression into other dimensions
and transcendental inquiries.

Martin Layton was born in Hudddersfield, Yorkshire, England in 1915. He came to South Africa as a young boy with his parents in 1957
at the time of the Suez Crisis. His parents had moved fearing
a Third World War and not wanting their young family to live
through a war as they had done. They settled in Uitenhage and he
was educated at Muir College for Boys. Art was taken as a extra
mural subject. He also attended the Russell Road Technical College
in Port Elizabeth where he studied Commercial Art.

However upon entering the job market, he became a technician
at NCR.

His works are not only found in South Africa but as far afield
as the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Martin's work is mainly surrealistic but he likes to call
it "Dimensionism". He takes the unknown and combines
it with the known, the familiar with the unfamiliar and vice versa.
His works are there to make you think and even at times
to confuse the mind.

Corporate Collections

Old Mutual Board Room - East London, Wilson Rowntree Boardroom - East London, Nel Attorneys Boardroom - East London, Ann Bryant Art Gallery The Coach House - East London.

Publications

Featured artist in the May/June edition of the “Habitat Magazine” and featured in the South African Times, a newspaper in London, UK.