Stephanie Martin: May 2024
Stephanie Martin is a ceramicist creating biomorphic forms. Martin received her Master of Arts with a focus in ceramics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Art Education, and is an art teacher at Sewickley Academy. She has exhibited in New York City at Viridian Artists Inc, Art of the State at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh's 107th Annual Art Exhibition at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and in the Pittsburgh area including the Three Rivers Arts Festival, BoxHeart Gallery, Carnegie Museum of Art, Tomayko Foundation, and a solo exhibition at Unsmoke Systems Artspace. She also furthered her artistic practice while attending the Kipaipai Joshua Tree Residency. She grew up in a small rural town in Pennsylvania where the Appalachian Mountains hugged her and the rivers ran orange from sulfur inspiring her to develop her own worlds and environments. Stephanie Martin fabricates ecosystems that are representations of her perceptions and experiences of life.
I am an interdisciplinary artist who creates biomorphic expressionistic forms using ceramics. The forms represent new worlds that range from a cellular level to a macroscopic planetary scale. The fabricated ecosystems are a representation of my perceptions and experiences of life; familiar to Earth, and yet an entirely new place. As an abstract reflection of biological forms within alternating scales, my work focuses on dualities present in life, and utilizes comparisons of attraction and repulsion. The overall processes involved are a significant part of my practice, as they function as a way to express and reflect on personal experiences. I desire for others to experience an evoked sense of living from these crafted worlds. In effort to achieve a symbiotic biomorphic form, I create ecosystems implementing a variety of techniques with creating different textures and layering. These combinations of processes take on a new life, and evolve throughout my artistic practice.
As my body of work has evolved, the biomorphic forms’ focus evolved into ideas on environmentalism. There is a push and pull, a balance present, within all types of environments and humans are going beyond the balance of dualities. In order to create environmental awareness, my work resembles locations across the world and concentrates on the effects of human impact.
Current and Upcoming Projects
Unearthed: A Collection of Folk Histories, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, PA
Invited: Talon Smith (October 24–November 23, 2024)101st Annual Nicole and Harry Martin Spring Show, Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA
Juror: Tanya Aguiñiga (March 15–August 9, 2024)
https://www.erieartmuseum.org/spring-show
https://www.erieartmuseum.org/spring-show-accepted-artworkSummer Residency, Session I: Embodied Perceptions, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Edgecomb, ME (June 2024)
https://www.watershedceramics.org/residencies/summer-residency/Work Study Scholarship/Residency, Julia Feld: Create a Story with Clay and Color, Pocosin Arts, Columbia, NC (July 2024)
https://pocosinarts.org/product/session-5-create-a-story-with-clay-and-color/
