Connecting by Shantell Martin, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Boston. Known for her long-form line drawings, Martin’s gestural illustrations reduce formal features to their most basic lines. Each figure is unique, yet clearly part of a cohesive visual language that reverberates throughout her extensive body of work. Her illustrative vocabulary echoes across media, from her motto, “You Are You,” to her clothing covered in line drawings, to her coloring book WAVE, and newer, more unprecedented forms.
Connecting represents Martin’s most recent foray into creativity and open source art, as she invites visitors to copy, remix, and even 3D print her drawings created with new open source drawing tools. As part of her residency at Autodesk’s Pier 9 Workshop in San Francisco, Martin began using design and fabrication resources to prototype new drawing implements. As an artist new to computer aided design (CAD) software and 3D printers, Martin’s research process was driven by a desire to design an extremely simple object that could profoundly impact her drawing output. Connecting features the outcome of this iterative process, including 15 of Martin’s new works on canvas, and 7 new open source works of 3D printed resin plastic.