Jennifer K. Martin, BFA, MFA

Statement:
My work examines natural and man-made materials as I make connections between art and science, creating series of artworks that emphasize color and process in Nature's physical systems and respond to man's existence with Nature. Inspired by patterns, color, oxidation, life, and decay in physical, geological, and biological fields of scientific study and observation, I focus on the material aspects of these events and how best to convey this beauty for my viewers. Workshops with artists John Cage, Jiro Okura, and Ray Kass involved spontaneous or ordered (I Ching) methods of allowing natural elements to guide and create the art. This spontaneous way with Nature and my work in Particle Physics in Japan influenced a 'Zen' approach in my own work, accepting Nature's way with materials. Each influencing the next, my recent projects involve paintings that allow Nature to create the image in its processes, sculptures influenced by these paintings that depict psychological and social behavior theorems and the possibility of new species interpreted through form and color, the hidden particles and waves underlying the spectrum of light utilized by human vision, and expressive color and form shown in the feathers of bird species, also responding to mans' relationship with these creatures. New projects present a series of prints looking at fractals in nature and a sculptural series relating meditative Zen 'Ensō' and dramatic Centrifugal Force.

My paintings make use of organic materials that are vulnerable to the touch and the physical processes in the elements, as so they are in their place in nature. Every action creates a reaction. Sculptures can be scratched or small pieces may someday fall off, inviting the collector to intervene and participate in its reattachment and re-creation. All these works confront the ephemerality of life. Like human sensitivity and emotion that theorems of color and form intimated, the paintings and sculptures are delicate, but there is beauty and strength in that fragility, just as there is beauty, strength, and fragility in our existence with Nature.