Jason Martin

Jason Martin was born in 1970 in Jersey, Channel Islands. He completed a foundation diploma at Chelsea School of Art from 1989 to 1990, then earned a BA (Hons) at Goldsmiths, University of London, from 1990 to 1993. His mature practice centers on process: thick layers of oil paint or acrylic gel applied to metal or Plexiglas and combed or dragged into striated, often monochrome fields that read as both painting and relief.

He made his solo debut at Lisson Gallery, London, in 1996, and gained wider attention the following year through his inclusion in Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1997, the exhibition most associated with the YBA movement. He won the John Moores 21 prize at the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art in 1999, and received the Gulf Prize at the European Biennial of the Visual Arts in La Spezia, Italy, in 2000.

He lives and works between London and Melides, in Portugal's Alentejo region, and continues to exhibit internationally, including a 2022 solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac in Seoul and Vertex, a 2026 solo exhibition at Galleria Christian Stein in Milan.

Martin's inclusion in the 1997 Sensation exhibition placed him within the story of the Young British Artists, though his practice has always sat somewhat apart from that group's more conceptual and figurative tendencies, rooted instead in a reductive, process-driven abstraction closer to the language of monochrome and color-field painting. Critical and curatorial attention has consistently returned to his method, the physical act of combing or dragging viscous paint across a rigid support, as the generator of both image and meaning. His continuing programme of international solo exhibitions, most recently Vertex at Galleria Christian Stein in Milan in 2026, reflects a critical consensus that treats him as a serious, if quieter, figure within contemporary European abstraction rather than a headline-driven market name.

Jason Martin's work has appeared in Post-War and Contemporary sales at major auction houses, including Phillips, Van Ham, and Ketterer Kunst, indicating an active secondary market. The highest publicly documented auction result identified to date is Origin, sold at Phillips, London, for GBP 114,300 in July 2023, though the exact day of sale could not be confirmed from public records. Two further results in a similar range are also documented, Hero at GBP 100,800 and Scion at GBP 97,500, again without confirmed sale dates. These figures represent the best currently available public auction data rather than a fully dated, audited sales history.

Martin is represented by a broad international network of galleries rather than a single exclusive representative, among them Lisson Gallery, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, and Buchmann Galerie, alongside several others active in Europe and Asia. That breadth signals sustained curatorial and commercial interest but also means his market is more distributed than concentrated. There is no published catalogue raisonne, so provenance and studio or gallery verification matter more than usual. Public auction data for Martin is comparatively sparse and even his highest documented results are not always fully dated, so collectors should treat any single sale figure with caution and confirm current pricing directly with a representing gallery rather than relying on secondary-market inference.