Rooms That Photograph Like Paintings

In the living room of the artist Martyn Thompson’s apartment in Sydney, Australia, a vintage mirror, a 1920s portrait, an Ivory Coast Baule stool and a Turkish wool-and-silk rug. Thompson made the ceramic vessel and the upholstery textiles. Credit… Josh Robenstone. [New York Times caption and illustration]

“I’m going to hesitate and say it’s settled into what it’s meant to be.”

(Martyn Thompson)

I was taken with the handmade rooms in Martyn Thompson’s Sydney, Australia home. They’re atmospherically profiled in the photographs. Each shot has a painterly aura to it. The recursive grid motif that Thompson lavishes on his lair is wildly appealing.

From the beginning, he has treated the space like a living art installation, hand-painting the walls in the plant-filled dining room and connected sitting room in what’s become a leitmotif: a large-scale checkerboard, here in beige and a creamy white. In another corner of the room, anchored by a turmeric-toned Turkish rug, a wall is covered in checked wallpaper he designed in shades of warm brown, russet and yellow; it was printed from a photograph he took of one of his paintings.

In the office, a jacquard tapestry hangs over a bed dressed in textiles by Thompson. Credit… Josh Robenstone. [New York Times caption and illustration]

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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