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Autobiographical and dreamlike, Martin bridges the fine art and commercial world, as well as the objects, places and conversations of the everyday experience.
537 East Delavan Avenue
537 East Delavan Avenue, Buffalo, NY

DANCE EVERYDAY

The artwork, a sprawling network of stark black line-drawings set against a white backdrop, occupies the 200-foot north-facing wall of the former Houdaille plant at 537 East Delavan Ave.

Buffalo
2017

The first step towards the rebirth for one of Buffalo's historically neglected neighborhoods the East Side's Northland Corridor, Shantell Martin's drawing "Dance Every Day" is a signal of things to come for the long-struggling community. Much of the plant will be demolished as part of a $42 million Buffalo Billion-funded revamp of the Northland Corridor into a hub for light industry and commerce that is being run by the Buffalo Urban Development Corporation. The work is the product of a collaboration between the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's public art program and the University at Buffalo's fledgling Creative Arts Initiative. 

"Dance Every Day", Martin's largest ever public art piece, was completed over a weekend in June. In that time, she worked with Buffalo artist Scott Bye and used several cans of spray-paint to transform the whitewashed wall into what many are seeing as a joyful reflection of a neighborhood creaking slowly back to life.

"What I do is playful. I feel like a big kid. What I do, I love it, and I enjoy it," she said. "And even if I come in in a bad mood, like 10 minutes later, I'm in a really great mood because I'm doing something I love. And I think people should do more of that."

 

Read more here.

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