The Artist
Martin Stevenson is a contemporary Scottish portrait painter known for bold, character-driven works in acrylic on board. His paintings are exhibited widely across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and are held in public and private collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery and the Grampian Hospitals Trust. Stevenson studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, specialising in portrait painting, a discipline he has maintained and developed across a career of more than four decades. His portraits are distinctive in their vivid colour, compositional confidence, and emphasis on the individual story of each subject.
View Exhibitions & Awards
Self-portrait of the artist
The Practice
For Stevenson the foundation of each portrait is a relationship, a conversation, a series of sittings, a growing understanding of who this person is and what they carry with them. The personal stories of the models have meaning as much as the finished paintings themselves. His uncompromising palette of striking greens, blues and reds reflect his directness. In 2016 his work shifted to storytelling with the inclusion of background "amulets", which now define his style.
Design Influence
In 1992, Stevenson founded MSD Design Ltd, a company specialising in bespoke steel fabrication and glass reinforced plastic manufacturing for the Oil & Gas and Civil engineering sectors, and later established GRP Aberdeen Ltd. Running these enterprises for nearly two decades has given Stevenson a professional grounding in precision, structure, and form that has become deeply embedded in his artistic sensibility. When he returned to painting in 2011, prompted by an invitation to exhibit locally, that design background was immediately apparent. The controlled lines, the deliberate positioning, and sense of structural integrity within each composition were not accidental qualities, but the hallmarks of an artist who understands both making and form.
He also contributed fabrication expertise to artist David Mach RA's large-scale commissioned work 'Phantom' (2015), installed at Kirkcaldy in Fife, a project that illustrates both his long-standing connections within the Scottish art world and the practical skills he brings to it.
Supporting the Arts
Martin Stevenson is an active member of the Aberdeen Artists Society, one of Scotland's oldest artist membership organisations, founded in 1827. Through MSD Design Ltd and GRP Aberdeen Ltd, he sponsors the prizes for Drawing and Painting at the Society's Annual Exhibition, an act of patronage motivated by a personal commitment to encouraging traditional skills and maintaining the British school aesthetic within contemporary practice.
This combination of sustained professional practice and meaningful support for emerging artists is unusual and speaks to a genuine investment in the wider art community in North-East Scotland.
Exhibitions
2025 Royal Scottish Academy, Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh
2025 195th Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, RHA Gallery, Dublin
2022 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition, Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
2022 Meffan Winter Show, Meffan Museum & Art Gallery, Scotland
2022 Aberdeen Artist's Society Annual Exhibition, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland
2021 Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Ireland
2020 Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland
2020 Scottish Portrait Award, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Duff House, Scotland
2020 Joint Exhibition with Keith Byres, Under the Hammer, Aberdeen, Scotland
2019 Meffan Winter Show, Meffan Museum & Art Gallery, Scotland
2019 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition, Ulster Museum Belfast, Northern Ireland
2018 Joint Exhibition with Keith Byres, Duff House, Banff, Scotland
2017 Royal Society of Portrait Artists Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
2016 The Royal Glasgow Institute, Open Exhibition, Scotland
2015 Aberdeen Artist's Society, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Scotland
2014 BP Portrait Awards, UK
2013 Portraiture from the Yacamini Collection and the Crawford Gallery's Permanent Collection, Ireland
1990 BP Portrait Awards, UK
1983 BP Portrait Awards, UK