About Martin
Aspiring painters should study with Martin Kinnear for his rare blend of technical mastery and philosophical depth. His teaching revives endangered classical methods while encouraging personal expression, offering students a profound, structured, and emotionally resonant foundation in the craft of oil painting.
About Martin
Martin Kinnear is a contemporary British artist known for his rigorous engagement with the techniques and traditions of historical oil painting, particularly those rooted in the Romantic and Impressionist periods. His work is often characterised by its atmospheric use of light and a strong sense of place, echoing the landscapes of Turner and the brushwork of late Monet, yet it also bears a distinct, introspective modernity. Kinnear’s paintings typically evoke solitude and memory, offering meditations on the passage of time, mortality, and the fragility of human experience¹.
Kinnear came to painting later in life after a career in marketing, and his journey into fine art is itself a narrative of self-reinvention and resilience². Autodidactic, he trained in a variety of roles which emphasised the craft of painting such as fine art restoration and traditional hand sign writing before teaching himself oil painting and founding the Norfolk Painting School in 2007³, (later the Martin Kinnear Studio), which has since gained a strong reputation for its focus on traditional oil painting methods⁴. Kinnear’s emphasis on process, materiality, and formal discipline places him firmly within a lineage of academic painters, but his sensibility—marked by an interest in abstraction, the metaphysical, and the unknowable—distinguishes his work from pastiche or revivalism⁵. His paintings engage deeply with the history of art while remaining emotionally present and accessible to contemporary viewers⁶.
One of the most notable aspects of Kinnear’s practice is his interest in what he calls “emotional realism”—a mode of painting that seeks not to reproduce what is seen, but what is felt. This is particularly evident in his landscapes and seascapes, which rarely depict identifiable locations but instead act as visual distillations of memory and mood⁷. His brushwork is expressive but controlled, and his use of glazing, scumbling, and impasto techniques demonstrates a mastery of traditional oil practices. Kinnear’s palette often leans toward the muted and melancholic—smoky greys, bruised blues, and tarnished golds—which further underscores the introspective tone of his work.
Personal adversity plays a significant role in Kinnear’s art. After being diagnosed with a degenerative illness, his output has become increasingly reflective, even metaphysical. His later works explore fragility, impermanence, and the desire for transcendence through art⁸. These themes are not rendered through explicit symbolism but rather through the evocation of mood and the material language of oil paint itself. In this respect, Kinnear’s practice aligns with Greenbergian formalism, in which truth to materials and the autonomy of the medium become vehicles for philosophical inquiry.
Kinnear’s credentials further underscore his relevance as a contemporary painter operating within and beyond traditional frameworks. His critically noted solo exhibition Regeneration, held at The Bowes Museum, was accompanied by a formal public defence articulating the conceptual and material framework of his work⁹. He has served as artist-in-residence at Durham University¹⁰ and was awarded the Médaille d’Argent at the historic Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA) Salon in Paris¹¹, where he exhibited works in the 2018, 2019, and 2021 editions¹². In the UK, he has shown at the Mall Galleries with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI), and the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), ¹³. His educational contributions include lecturing at the University of Leeds (notably on the MA Fine Art programme in Harrogate), the University of Salford, and Turps Art School¹⁴. Currently, Kinnear is undertaking an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, widely recognised as the world’s leading art and design university¹⁵, a move that further affirms his ongoing commitment to critical and formal innovation in painting.
Beyond painting, Kinnear is also a committed educator and advocate for traditional painting methods. His writings and teaching have helped to preserve and disseminate endangered techniques, and he is widely regarded as an influential figure in the British classical art revival³. At the same time, his work avoids the conservatism often associated with revivalist art. Instead, it asserts the continuing relevance of historic methods as a means of articulating modern emotional truths.
In sum, Martin Kinnear’s work exemplifies a nuanced dialogue between tradition and innovation, material and memory. Through his dedication to craft and his profound sensitivity to the human condition, he has created a body of work that is both technically accomplished and deeply affecting.
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Footnotes
1. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) About. Available at: https://www.martinkinnear.com/about (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
2. Bishop, C. (2016) ‘Inspirational story behind New British Art Gallery in North Creake’, Eastern Daily Press, 1 October. Available at: https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/20868882.inspirational-story-behind-new-british-art-gallery-north-creake/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
3. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) CV. Available at: https://www.martinkinnear.com/pagecv (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
4. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) Martin Kinnear Studio | Norfolk Painting School Live. Available at: https://www.martinkinnearstudio.com/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
5. AucArt (n.d.) Martin Kinnear. Available at: https://www.aucart.com/artists/martin-kinnear/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
6. Tennants Auctioneers (n.d.) Martin Kinnear: Landscapes of the North. Available at: https://www.tennants.co.uk/discover/events-exhibitions/martin-kinnear-landscapes-of-the-north/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
7. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) Painted Garden. Available at: https://www.martinkinnear.com/archive/painted-garden (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
8. Government Art Collection (n.d.) Martin Kinnear. Available at: https://artcollection.dcms.gov.uk/person/kinnear-martin/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
9. Tennants Auctioneers (n.d.) Exhibition: Martin Kinnear ‘Works from Regeneration’. Available at: https://www.tennants.co.uk/discover/events-exhibitions/exhibition-martin-kinnear-works-from-regeneration/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
10. Durham University (n.d.) St Mary’s College Art Exhibition 2023: Martin Kinnear. Available at: https://www.dur.ac.uk/media/durham-university/colleges/st-maryx27s-college/Martin-Kinnear-Info_AU.pdf (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
11. SNBA (2019) Palmarès du Salon 2019, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Available at: https://www.salonsnba.com/palmares-2019/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
12. AucArt (n.d.) Martin Kinnear.
13. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) CV.
14. Kinnear, M. (n.d.) Lecturing and Teaching. Available at: https://www.martinkinnear.com/general-2 (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
15. Royal College of Art (2025) MA Painting Programme Overview. Available at: https://www.rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-arts-humanities/painting-ma/ (Accessed: 22 April 2025).