Landing, 2016
7724 Girard Ave

West 48' x 17'
South 48' x 9'
East 6' 8" x 17'
Anonymous; Alex and Laleh Roudi - Wall Sponsors

In her quintessential style, Heather Gwen Martin has hand picked a distinctive and vibrant color palette to ensconce the exterior of the three-story tower on the Drury Lane side of 7724 Girard Ave (Lapiz Building). Replacing Kim MacConnel’s Girl from Ipanema, Martin’s mural, Landing, is also painted directly on the building. The prominent, brilliant orange ground is interrupted by tributaries of other colors, creating a dynamic abstract composition. Large gestural shapes are broken up by delicate sinews of color creating a sense of layering and depth. Her boldly experimental color combinations interplay strategically with one another to affect the way the viewer perceives form, color, and space. Martin’s organic composition counters the geometric lines of the building as it dissolves into a biomorphic world of curves.
    
Heather Gwen Martin is a painter, primarily working in oil on large-scale linen canvases. Martin was born in 1977 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She studied at the University of California, San Diego and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Martin delves deeply into the world of color theory and abstraction. The forms she creates teeter between complete abstraction and a loose suggestion of referential objects and forms. Her two-dimensional works boldly evoke a sense of space through color relationships. Experimental color combinations and lyrical compositions invite viewers to explore the visual depths within her paintings.

Martin’s work has been included in museum exhibitions at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; the Frist Art Museum, Nashville; the Rice University Art Gallery, Houston; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Claremont Museum of Art, California; the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, California; the El Segundo Museum of Art, California; and the Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. Martin lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann