Martin Leighton

Martin Leighton was born in Montrose, Scotland in 1951 and now lives on the south coast of Dorset working from his home studio.  Having always drawn from an early age he experimented with oils on canvas in the 1980s and never looked back.  After several successful exhibitions he decided in 2003 to become a professional artist.  

Martin Leighton is entirely self-taught preferring to experiment with his own style and is passionate about portrait and figurative subjects which are often combined with seascapes.  Living on the south coast allows many opportunities to study light changes as nature provides him with an abundance of ideas for his paintings.

“The challenge for me is to create evocative and thought provoking paintings... Read More

Martin Leighton was born in Montrose, Scotland in 1951 and now lives on the south coast of Dorset working from his home studio.  Having always drawn from an early age he experimented with oils on canvas in the 1980s and never looked back.  After several successful exhibitions he decided in 2003 to become a professional artist.  

Martin Leighton is entirely self-taught preferring to experiment with his own style and is passionate about portrait and figurative subjects which are often combined with seascapes.  Living on the south coast allows many opportunities to study light changes as nature provides him with an abundance of ideas for his paintings.

“The challenge for me is to create evocative and thought provoking paintings striving to achieve realistic, yet not photographic images.  Achieving skin tones is very challenging but I find myself totally engrossed in my painting until I am satisfied with the end result” - Martin Leighton.