Martin Firrell

From the summer of 2018 to the end of the decade, public artist Martin Firrell created 40 artworks for display on billboards across the UK.

It’s interesting to ask, what do these artworks convey en masse? What sense of the conscience of our times do they portray? And what do they say about the artist at this point in his development?

The attempt to answer these questions is perhaps one of the most interesting and valuable parts of the curatorial process.

The expressive power of Firrell’s works lies undoubtedly in the elucidatory force of his direct and spare language. His works are plain speaking, Germanic almost.

They deal in the imagination of protest. They are powered by a subterranean indignation at the unfairness of the world but that indignation is transmuted into wit, telling observation, and an apparent and touching concern for the world.

Barbara Ulbrist Curator, Basel Switzerland