I draw male dancers and actors in graphite. I choose them because they represent preconceived roles yet are themselves at the same time.
The play between the reality and projection of the person is as immediate as their profession, presence and aesthetic physical form allows.
I want to provoke viewers into examining their own preconceived ideas of beauty and identity in the service of capturing a particular kind of tension between the divine and the physical nature that resists it.
I rely on allegory by having the work flirt with realism and interpret the art of the past by creating visual situations imbued with a mysterious and emotional character, thus making the work more evocative.
CL Martin
April 8, 2015