about the artist
CL Martin is a figurative artist. She has studied art all her life and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is continually inspired by the performing arts, particularly actors and dancers. In 2007, she received an Artist Initiative Grant from the MN State Arts Board and the National Endowment for The Arts. She has exhibited internationally from London to Italy and her work resides in private collections in London, Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Los Angeles and New York. In 2011, she had her first solo show in Manhattan.
Solo show in Minneapolis, MN 2018
The work in a public art installation at Art Basel Miami 2020; curated by Save Art Space and muralist NM Salgar. “Poster”, mixed media on paper, 2020
“I use mixed media to create emotionally complex figures using performers as inspiration and models. I choose them because they represent preconceived roles yet are themselves at the same time. This tension is as immediate as their physical magnetism allows, making the work more like an evocative performance than static description. I like to invite viewers into examining their own preconceived ideas about identity, cultural roles, performance, and emotion in the service of capturing a particular kind of silent exchange between the expressive and the viewer; the performer and the onlooker.”
