ISSA
JENN MARTIN
NEW YORK
BIOGRAPHY
Jenn Martin was born and raised in NYC. She attended SUNY-Buffalo with the intention to study architecture, until her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After returning to the city to be with family, she began working with charcoals and became a self-taught portrait artist. She still resides in NYC, where her work has been shown in several art shows, and was most recently featured in Van Der Plas Gallery's 'Color of Oasis' exhibition.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The faces on the covers of magazines and on the television screen always fascinated me, though I never knew how to capture them. I always had deep roots in art; painting landscapes, and sketching buildings and rooms I was in since I can remember. When my dad passed away in 2008 I stopped drawing and painting, until my brother gave me a set of charcoals and paper. At first I drew a few non-familiar faces, then I tried Marilyn Monroe with my grays but something was missing: color. I found an old box of pastels, and added cobalt blue as a background. Suddenly she popped off the page. Since then, I’ve continued to draw the pop culture icons we see every day- with a touch of color.
