Jennifer Louise Martin, 'Wing'

This series of paintings make reference to the nature of our desires and imagination. I am painting the idea of something that can exist in real life, a glimpse of a fairy-tale, there is a nostalgia which grows out of the passage of time. The paintings are a portrait of a feeling from fragments of a narrative, where colour and scale is explored to exude a psychological presence. The diaristic quality enhances the sense that we have seen what we are looking at before. Snapshots are painted at speed that manifest in an intimacy of relationships, reflections and memories all touching the humanity in ourselves. I am interested in weird and absurd configurations of design, sometimes banal

compositions but there lies a fantasy in the extraction from the daily grind. There is a central enquiry that painting is a model of an experience of the world. A rainfall of images that aim to capture an emotional connection with second- hand, occasionally mundane and tacky imagery and transforming them into paintings that have a poetry. I am mesmerized by the materiality of paint and with an element of cack-handedness in the handling of it, the resulting image creates tension on the surface, representing the fragility of life itself.

Martin graduated with honours in Psychology and Neuroscience at Leeds University in 2003. She has also studied at Central St. Martins completing a Foundation course and a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art. In 2010 she qualified as a secondary school art teacher and is the founder of Artbuddies. She was part of the Turps Banana Art School in 2012, mentored by Marcus Harvey. Martin has completed a residency at Vermont Studio Center, USA as well as in Berlin and Los Angeles. Having worked in the advertising industry before her teaching career, Martin enjoys collaborating with brands and has done so with MC Overalls, Laura Bailey & Bobbi Brown. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, LA, London & Ibiza.