ARTIST STATEMENT

For more information about my paintings, please call my gallery at:
310-453-7773.
My paintings are mini battles comprised of human, alien, and machine forces. Everyday situations become funny, bizarre encounters that manifest into plans to take over the world as toys, weapons, and space invaders go to work. Sex, violence, and machine are themes I draw from to create paintings that address odd interactions and strange relationships. The abstraction of these notions takes the subject into a realm of its own. In this play there are real ideas about toys and weapons, passion and violence, space aliens and people–which I find perversely funny. Visually, the figures and objects take on a similar form, putting life and machine into an interchangeable format, and suggesting the crossover of associations tied to both. The figures are ungrounded, simplified, and distorted. And I use backgrounds with no specific tie to any particular physical space, setting, or location. Since the readability of my imagery is not straightforward, I use titles to give a clue into the context and humor, or absurdity of the paintings.
RECREATIONAL SYSTEMS - Critical Reviews

BRIEF BIO

Heather Gwen Martin was born 1977 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Martin studied at the University of California, San Diego, where she received a BA with honors in 1999, and at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2001). She was nominated for the 2010-2011 San Diego Art Prize in the emerging artist category and will be having her second solo exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in September.

EDUCATION
2001 - The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

1999 - University of California, San Diego, BA, Honors, Highest Distinction in Visual Arts

RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 - PULSE New York, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, NY

2010 - Recreational Systems, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Santa Monica, CA

2008 - Transpositional, Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects, San Diego, CA

RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011 - Contemporary Abstraction in Southern California, Southwestern College Gallery of Art,Chula Vista, CA

2010 - Here Not There: San Diego Art Now, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, curated by Lucia Sanroman, La Jolla, CA
Group Show featuring Lael Corbin, Anthony Lepore, Heather Martin, Iana Quesnell, Andy Ralph, and Stephen Tompkins, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Santa Monica, CA
New Contemporaries III, Project X: Art, Solana Beach, CA

2009 -Social Climbing, Part I: On the Move, Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects, San Diego, CA
Homing In, Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA

ADDRESS / CONTACT INFORMATION
LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
2525 MICHIGAN AVENUE
BERGAMOT STATION F2
SANTA MONICA, CA 90404
T +1 310 453 7773
F +1 310 453 7778
WWW.LUISDEJESUS.COM
GALLERY@LUISDEJESUS.COM