My shapes and forms are organic, my colors bright and saturated
I never sketch in pencil. My paintings must start with a permanent and spontaneous layer - a dark stain or inky black brush strokes that set deeply in to my paper. I want the first step, the first marks to influence the layers that follow. Once started, there is no going back. It is my job as the painter to move forward and through further applications of paint, to resolve forms and find meaning in the act of painting and thinking.
Spring Watercolors
a show coming to the BankRI Galleries
MEET THE ARTIST – HANNAH PURCELL MARTIN
a profile by Paula Martiesian for Spring Watercolors a show coming to the BankRI Galleries, dates TBA
To most people, a forest is just a forest. But that’s not what Smithfield artist Hannah Purcell Martin sees. She knows the land has a story to tell and Martin is immersed in its narrative.
Today hikers wander forests for pleasure, taking trails marked with blue or yellow paint. But in those same forests Martin sees layers of history, the manipulation of the land by early settlers who needed to farm their own food. They felled ancient trees and cleared the land of rocks they then used to build stone walls. As farmers left the area for richer and more arable farm land, the trees made a comeback. Most of the forests Rhode Islanders see are less than 100 years old.
Originally from Rochester, New York, Martin was home schooled as a child and had unstructured time to draw and paint. After she graduated from at the University of Buffalo with a degree in printmaking, Martin wanted a change. “I needed something totally different,” she says. “I had a friend at RISD and that seemed like enough to pack up and move to Rhode Island.” She’s been here since 2010.
Martin’s day job running the community garden program at the non-profit Revive the Roots keeps her connected with the land. She is on the non-profit’s board of directors and even lives in one of the organization’s historic farm houses.
When she’s not working at Revive the Roots, Martin is in her Lincoln studio. She rents space in an old mill building from the Reliquarium, a group of artists who create one-of-a-kind environments for a variety of productions. Their outsized stage sets and unique creations fill the building and are the perfect setting for the young artist.
Martin has made a new series of watercolor landscapes for the BankRI Gallery exhibit. “I take emotional snapshots of landscapes I encounter just living my life,” says Martin. “Sometimes a passing moment of driving gets translated into a painting.”
A drive by the North Burial Grounds on North Main Street in Providence resulted in a watercolor of crows flying circles above the gravestones – a piece that truly captures the spiritual quality of nature in an urban setting. Another drive near a swamp bordering the Smithfield airport yielded a moody green and blue watercolor entitled “There Were Wolves Here.”
Although traditional in nature, the watercolors have an other worldly quality, quiet and contemplative with an unusual viewpoint. You can almost see the layers of history and hear the story of the land.
The BankRI Galleries featured the artworks of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts contemporary artists and are curated by Paula Martiesian, a Providence-based artist and arts advocate.