Martin presents us with a paradox. The marks, the gestures, present themselves as quick, furious events, and synchronously as remote relics of some past occurrence. The paintings are dense material objects, with the simultaneity of a photograph, yet through the associations read into the colour and nature of the pigments, Martin alludes to the sweep of historical trans-global venturing. It is as if, on looking at these paintings, we are compelled to switch between viewing them as instantaneous and historical, representational and non- representational; abstract paintings in an historical context, and history paintings in the context of abstraction.Jason Martin The Roaring Forties by Chris Hawtin, The Roaring Forties exhibition, The Fine Art Society, London, 2010