Longtime fans of these bands, as well as new fans of the artist, couldn’t get enough, but the question remained: Who’s Luke Martin? It didn’t help matters that new collectors were sometimes confronted by multiple attributions for his work. Though the place in Martin’s poster for Death Cab is real-a Colorado hiking destination called Crystal Mill-the spot was rendered as a mysterious mountain pond below an abandoned log cabin the rickety ladder climbing from the pond’s surface to the cabin’s doorway is at once ominous and inviting.ĭeath Cab for Cutie, June 25, 2019, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Colorado. Martin now visualized that same young couple and their dog at the end of a hike. For that show, the artist followed up on his 2018 Death Cab for Cutie poster that resembled a collage of Polaroids taken by a young couple while traveling. And Phish got a pair of trippy, outer-space-themed pulp-fiction covers (one incorporating Baltimore’s architecture), in part because Martin had always wanted to do something like that, but also because, well, Phish.įinally, there was the poster for Martin’s favorite band, Death Cab for Cutie, which played Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, on June 25.
Because Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was doing a solo gig in Lisbon, Portugal, Martin imagined a solitary guitarist strumming on the steps beneath the clocktower of that city’s landmark Pena Palace. For a show by The National, whose music tends to the brooding, Martin delivered a row of high-tension power lines running through a lonely field before disappearing into infinity. Fans of the Foo Fighters, who were playing in Croatia, could purchase a print filled with a graveyard of traditional Croatian pirate ships. For Dave Matthews, Martin designed a classic 1950s diner (a place called “Dave Matthews Band”) in the shadow of the Camden, New Jersey, side of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which happened to be a few blocks from the concert venue. Though each of those June posters was stylistically identifiable as the work of Luke Martin, the imagery and subjects the artist came up with for his epic two-week run were incredibly diverse. “When I was in high school, my art teacher, Kurt Plinke, would always take my black and white paints away from me.” Phish, J(left) and J(right), at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. And his posters frequently incorporated band names, venues, and show dates directly into their design. “I feel like that stuff’s been done a million times,” he says of two of the most predictable rock-poster tropes.
#GRATEFUL DEAD POSTERS FREE#
Martin’s June posters were also free of scantily clad babes and flaming skulls. But then came those two weeks in June, and suddenly, Martin’s work was everywhere.Īs a body of work, Martin’s June 2019 posters in old-timey sepia tones and moody blues had more in common with American artists of the early 20th century such as Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell than the Art Nouveau crowd of the 1890s, whose masters, Alphonse Mucha and Alfred Roller, had been key inspirations to rock-poster artists of the psychedelic ’60s, including Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson. In fact, his 2019 began relatively slowly, with Martin designing only a scattering of posters for Childish Gambino, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Arctic Monkeys, and a band from North Carolina called Rainbow Kitten Surprise, whose members are personal friends of the artist.
A lot of people didn’t know who I was before that.”ĭave Matthews Band, June 15, 2019, at BB&T Pavilion, Camden, New Jersey. There’s no way 2019 can be any better.’ But that summer, I put down my flag in the gig-poster field.
“At the end of 2018,” Martin tells me over the phone, “I was like, ‘This has been an awesome year. Martin was as surprised as anyone by his sudden success. Despite the distinct musical tastes of these band’s audiences, one artist had been selected to produce limited-edition screenprints for all of them, a 22-year-old Baltimorean named Luke Martin.įor Martin, it was a helluva couple of weeks, but for lots of rock-poster collectors, even those who like to think they’re in the know, a common question was, “Who’s Luke Martin?” The occasions were concerts headlined by Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, The National, Eddie Vedder, Phish, and Death Cab for Cutie. All images via Luke Martin.īetween June 15 and 25, 2019, several thousand rock posters flew off a dozen or so merch tables on two continents. The Avett Brothers, Novem(left) and Novem(right), at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.
0 kommentar(er)
