SHANTELL MARTIN: CONTINUOUS LINE
Image: Shantell Martin, Continuous Line, installation view / Image ©Shantell Martin
PRESS RELEASE / SEPTEMBER 21 - NOVEMBER 18, 2012
"...an opportunity to see one of Brooklyn's best young visual artists." Flavorpill
Black & White Gallery/Project Space is very excited to present Continuous Line - a large-scale, first solo show of works made specifically for the exhibition by the Brooklyn-based, British visual and performance artist Shantell Martin. The exhibition’s title refers to the artist’s continuous endeavor to transform her ongoing internal monologue into visual narrative while simultaneously indicating the complimentary relationship between the indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces.
Shantell Martin works in the variety of artistic media: analog drawing on walls, cars, people, shoes, clothes, found or interesting objects and digital drawing using open frame works (coding platform), as well as performance/projection. Increasingly, Martin has been incorporating recurring words and phrases into her work and collaborating with members of her family back in London, starting with her grandmother in Dear Grandmother Project.
Martin favors a loose style that suggests free association but, upon closer inspection, seemingly incomplete scenarios reveal precise line and placement of objects. Translated and mapped to the gallery space, her continuous flow of sensations, impressions, images, memories and thoughts will invite the viewers to reevaluate their relationship to their surroundings.
Since graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins University of Art & Design with first class honors in graphic design and illustration in 2003, internationally acclaimed visual artist Shantell Martin (*1980) is expanding conventional definitions of drawing and animation to transform visual experience in the design, fashion and music industries. Her dazzling light projections have been featured in iconic spots such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the mega clubs of Tokyo and Russia, and on the enormous screens at Shibuya and Harajuku crossings in Tokyo. Martin has quickly infiltrated popular culture stateside — she’s been cast as herself on quintessential New York show Gossip Girl, interviewed on CNN, appeared on an NBC morning show, and deemed a muse of super-hip design blog, PSFK. She was named by French Glamour as New York’s “coolest it girl” in 2011, and her zany, hand-illustrated bedroom walls graced the cover of the New York Times home section in May 2012. Martin has collaborated with celebrity photographers and brands alike; her notable work includes a project with celebrity photographer Nigel Barker, where she created digital sets for a 10 page Tatler Asia editorial with supermodel Christina Garcia. Martin’s latest brand collaborations include transforming the New York custom denim store 3!1 into a Martin inspired wonderland of her special edition jeans, murals and objects, a screening in Dell’s 2011 experiential pop up workspace in New York City, and package design for luxury fragrance brands, to name a few. In February 2012, she was one of just four artists commissioned by Nike iD to make a piece of work and a limited edition shoe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Nike Cortez She also has created murals in a range of contexts – from the private homes of celebrities to the faces of models and friends. In the summer of 2012 Shantell Martin was awarded the Black & White Project Space Prize.