About Me

Artist Statement

The work I create is a reflection of the emotions and experiences I have personally faced within my past and present. It is a continuous body of work that moves between 2 dimensional paintings and drawings. However, its main focus is that it invites viewers to look within themselves to question their own emotions and experiences. By doing so, I encourage change and reflection in individuals and communities.My work moves between realism and abstraction, informed by my childhood & adulthood, depicting humans figures or none at all. It touches on dual emotions of trauma and love, sadness and happiness. I depict both reconstructed memories of my life and conceptual scenes using metaphors and symbolism. My work that reconstructs memories invites viewers to relive my personal moments. I focus on the emotional weight of the moment where the work becomes an act of remembering with emotional authenticity. My conceptual based work, while still informed by my experiences, moves away from real moments. Instead it utilizes metaphors and symbolism to express complex emotions and topics that are beneath the surface of ordinary interactions.The materiality of my work is just as important as my subjects and topics. To correctly portray different emotions, I incorporate different mediums and materials. The mediums I use range from paintings and drawings using oil paint, charcoal, and graphite. These materials and mediums are applied onto wood panel, stretched canvas, or on paper. I refuse to work with materials that will create more pollution. I work off of direct and indirect observation, but accentuate lighting, value, and color to push and pull varying emotions. In my application of material I use alla prima in my paintings incorporating impasto textures and in my drawings I use charcoal or graphite to make unique expressive textures to add dimensionality. Together, my use of materials finds a balance between my use of subjects.My work incorporates different statements on emotional truths from works about recollections of memories to works about conceptual themes. While both draw from personal experience, one area seeks to preserve and express remembered moments, and the other transforms experience into symbolic imagery. Together, they encourage a broader sense of vulnerability, and human connection. Through my work, viewers can take a form of activism changing their own life and the lives of those around them.

Bio

Audra M. Martin is an artist from a small rural town named Coalinga located in the central valley of California. Her work primarily tackles explaining her views of the world around her through the use of different mediums. It is an explorative approach that can push and pull different emotions through the use of color, value, and form. These mediums range from paintings to drawings. She recently graduated California State University Stanislaus with a B.A in Studio Art. Currently she is focused on making new work to share with more individuals and communities.

CV