I don’t want to make 100 of the same painting. I don’t even want to make 10. Series are strange things — they trick you into thinking each work should echo the last. But I don’t want echoes. I want friction. Interruption. Something a bit uncomfortable.
That’s where Celibacy came in.
No.12 in the Huxley series, Celibacy feels like holding your breath. It’s tension and pause. It’s the power of refusal. Of saying: “Not this time.” There’s discipline in it, but also unrest. A kind of trembling just beneath the surface.
It belongs to Huxley, but barely. Like a sibling who left home too early and came back stranger, sharper, different. And that’s exactly why it had to be painted.
Each piece in this series has its own insistence — I don’t plan them. I don’t sit down with a roadmap. I wait for what knocks. And Celibacy didn’t knock. It stood outside the door and stared me down until I gave in.
This is the kind of cohesion I believe in. Not repetition, but conversation. A thread pulled tight across differences.
Because if I’m not surprised by the work, there’s no point showing up.
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Martin Breeze Original Art.
It’s what makes you so unique.