: www.dace.co.uk :
strange but beautiful paintings
Martin Dace
Strange but beautiful oil paintings, using the power of traditional methods. My aim is to remind the soul of the true beauty, as Plato might have said. Here are original compositions, old master copies, and interpretations of old master paintings.
I shall gradually transfer all my best paintings to this page. Meanwhile the original gallery page is still there.
Click on one of the thumbnail images to go to the page for that painting.
Old master copies
Original paintings
Works in progress
Sometimes it takes a long time to finish a painting.
Viewing
You may view a painting prior to purchase if you wish to visit my studio, a short walk from New Cross Gate station (Southern and Underground), London, England (by prior arrangement). Occasional open days will be advertised on this site, and by mail or email if you are on my mailing list.
Contact information
You can me or use the on-line contact form.
Martin Dace, New Cross, London SE14, England
Technical information
Lightfastness
For oil painting I use Michael Harding colours or others of equivalent quality. I choose pigments that have either stood the test of time (for example, the iron oxide earth colours were used in the caves of Lascaux 15,000 years ago), or their modern chemical equivalents (eg: ultramarine, a synthetic blue equivalent to the lapis lazuli blue used by medieval artists and the ancient Egyptians), or pigments where there is good reason to believe in the longevity of the colours because of extensive testing (titanium white, cadmium red). Colours still available to the modern artist, such as rose madder and some of its synthetic equivalents, are known to fade, and I do not use them.
Colour
It is nearly impossible to represent the colours and tones of a painting accurately on a web page. This is because the tonal and colour range of a photograph or a scanned image cannot match the range of the human eye. In general the tonal range and subtlety of colour is greater in the paintings than can be represented on a computer screen.
Pricing
If you are interested in a picture, email me for price information. Information about starting prices for portraits is on the portraits page.