‘You Almost Need Sunglasses’: Sun Dazed Nostalgia In Will Martyr’s Latest Show At Maddox Gallery

Will Martyr, Nothing Else To Do Today, 2026. Sun Dazed, Maddox Street Gallery © Will Martyr, Courtesy of Maddox Gallery

We never forget the feeling of holidays, just like we never forget the feeling of being in love. All the precious little moments – sea salt on your lips, languid al fresco dinners – are artist Will Martyr’s inspiration. Such rose-tinted memories don’t just keep him cozy in the British winter: they’re the cornerstone of his latest body of work, a sunny meditation on nostalgia.

Installation view, Sun Dazed, Maddox Street Gallery © Courtesy of Maddox Gallery

‘They are at once new and familiar to everyone.’

‘I was always good at art,’ Martyr explains, leaning back in his chair. ‘My father was forbidden to be an artist when he was young, so when I showed an aptitude, it was really pushed.’ Martyr has studied in London and New York, producing large-scale works for corporate collections as well as large gallery commissions. His work resonates with an international audience, drawn to its distinctive balance of emotional resonance and bold visual language. New York inspired him with its ‘ridiculous, incongruous clash of architectural scales and genres’ and brought the artist’s love of vivid colour into a sharper focus, but Martyr gradually turned his attention to the more sentimental nature of ‘place’, culminating in his latest exhibition, Sun Dazed, at leading contemporary gallery, Maddox Gallery.

Will Martyr, Take My Hand, 2026. Sun Dazed, Maddox Street Gallery © Will Martyr, Courtesy of Maddox Gallery

‘I wanted to have more emotional connection towards the places I was painting,’ he explains. ‘The works I make now are hybrids of dozens of different experiences and locations. They are at once new and familiar to everyone.’ Martyr’s own history of travel and busy family life are an influence, but he’s most interested in the dialogue they can prompt in viewers.

‘It's a timeless nostalgia of places, but also a kind of a desire for what you want your future to look like as well.’

‘You can take your own experiences and emotions of places that you've been or you'd like to visit,’ he says, ‘and place them within the work. It's a timeless nostalgia of places, but also a kind of a desire for what you want your future to look like as well.’ There’s an unmistakeable echo of David Hockney in Martyr’s lusciously sunlit colours, the glittering blues of a swimming pool or the pinks of inflatables and beach umbrellas. They are echoes of Pop Art and vintage travel posters, with Martyr reshaping the glamour of advertising into something more complex.

Will Martyr, Seat of a Father, 2026. Sun Dazed, Maddox Street Gallery © Will Martyr, Courtesy of Maddox Gallery

But whereas many of Hockney’s iconic poolside scenes feature people, Sun Dazed is faintly uncanny in its lack of human presences, as though you’re at a holiday resort and just turned around to find everyone’s vanished. This only enhances the wistful optimism of his artwork titles: an arrangement of snorkels and goggles is christened ‘Everything Is Achievable’, while ‘Keeper Of Dreams’ is the name of a canvas depicting a pool and a flamingo-shaped inflatable, glancing curiously at the viewer.

‘There’s a particular painting in this new body of work that has one of those plastic chairs you can buy at B&Q,’ he says. ‘Whether you’re a multi-millionaire or live on a council estate, everyone has sat in one of those chairs so there’s a democracy to the depiction.’ The painting, titled ‘Seat Of A Father’, hints at an anthropomorphic link between the chair and the familial stirrings it evokes.

This anthropomorphic transformation may be why Martyr’s scenes don’t need people, and why he feels that the objects he paints are charged with their own energy. ‘The snorkels are my daughter or my son. The beach ball is a child.’ Where in his previous work the inflatables stood in as markers of a family event or party just finished, they now more implicitly evoke people themselves. ‘They are there as family members,’ Will explains.

Will Martyr, Sanctuary and Solace, 2026. Sun Dazed, Maddox Street Gallery © Will Martyr, Courtesy of Maddox Gallery

But as much as one can dig into the symbolism, the first thing that hits you is the colours. ‘The paints that I use are super, super saturated,’ he shares. ‘It’s so bright, white bright. That intense heat, that’s what I’m trying to create. You almost need sunglasses to look at the paintings.’ He’s loved the potency of colour ever since seeing a Tate exhibition of Ellsworth Kelly’s art, which feature geometric blocks of colour, and being inspired by the tension of how shades can be juxtaposed.

‘You almost need sunglasses to look at the paintings.’

Through his canvases, we all get to recapture a little of those halcyon days spent lounging through summers, answering only to leisure. ‘I make paintings that I think are beautiful,’ he says. ‘They are about moments of love and companionship, that’s what I want people to reflect on.’

Even when the paintings feel like a snapshot of post-party clear up, when all the guests have gone home, there isn’t room for melancholy. Rather, they feel like a chance to collect memories that will sustain you. Ultimately, Martyr says he wants to bring his audience a little of that feeling you get when you’re standing in front of a sunset: ‘If you’re able to look at that every morning when you wake up, it’s a wonderful thing.’

The exhibition is currently open at Maddox Gallery on Maddox Street until mid-April, offering a timely escape from the grey of a British winter. After all, we could all do with a few more golden mornings.