Susannah Martin's work focuses on the relationship between man and nature. The artist shows naked, mostly female bodies in front of romantic landscape panoramas. But the viewer immediately senses that something is obviously wrong here. The staging is simply too perfect.
The escape into the healing, liberating nature is pure utopia. Martin's works are a critique of our normalized and standardized lives, from whose constraints we seem unable to free ourselves. Have we become so alienated from ourselves and from nature that there really is no going back?
The paradisiacal landscapes with their clear rivers, lakes, forests and mountain panoramas seem strangely lifeless, like a mere backdrop. Often, nature in Martin's works is not untouched either, but littered with garishly colored plastic toys. The women pose in front of the landscape as if they had stepped out of a glossy magazine. They have shiny metallic balloons with them, all shaped like the number six. One could think of a child's birthday party. But isn't the number 666 in John's Revelation associated with Satan? Is this the expulsion from paradise?
The naked, perfectly sculpted, flawless bodies are at least in no way "as God created them". They seem like an embodiment of today's beauty and youth craze, to which so many women think they have to submit. Martin's art is only superficially a fun excursion into nature; underneath, everything seems strangely surreal, alien, and somehow creepy.
Listen to these 2 heliumTALK Podcasts with Susannah:
NEXT:
Painting the Virtual Mind
October 20 – November 10, 2023
Vernissage: October 20, 6 – 10 pm
At: The MISSION
more info
PAST:
12.22: Back to the Future (group: 20 year heliumcowboy anniversary show)
11.21: Natürlich. (group)
This is a selection only. If you are interested in additional artwork, please get in touch for either a personal appointment at the gallery or a portfolio of available work.
