Shantell Martin

About me:

For Shantell from Lam Thuy Vo on Vimeo.

シャンテル・マーティンはロンドン出身のビジュアルアーティスト兼 イラストレーターである。現在はここ日本を拠点に活動し彼女が行うライブパフォーマンスや ステージで繰り広げる手の込ん だドローイング（デッサン）はデザインと音楽コミュニティの両面から 大注目を浴びている。また最近ではDj Magの "Vj Top 10" 入りを果たし世界に通用するその実力を見せつけたことは記憶に新しい。

Since graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins University of Art & Design with first class honors in graphic design and illustration in 2003, Shantell Martin has been expanding conventional definitions of drawing, using it as a base from which to storm and occupy the design, fashion and music scenes. After some time living in Japan, Martin has recently relocated to New York City.

Since graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins University of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Graphic Design/Illustration in 2003, Shantell Martin has redefined the concept of drawing—using it as a base from which to storm the fashion, music and club worlds. Recently relocating from Tokyo to New York, she collaborates with designers, musicians, DJs and her audience to produce fresh, continually evolving art and design that challenge, inspire, amaze and mystify.

Starting with the humble tools of pen and paper she creates delicate, intricate and ever-changing otherworldly scenes, of populated quasi-humans and other not-quite-familiar creatures, which themselves seem to be continually engaged in the process of evolving into something else. Of her drawings she says:

“The lines are spontaneous and intuitive, drawing for me is a line that flows between the past and the future without touching the sides.”

Her illustrations are unique and flexible, a style that has proved adaptable to other forms of expression. Apart from her drawings, which have been exhibited from London to Tokyo, as an increasingly-sought after VJ Shantell has created two unique art forms—both proudly low-tech—which allow her to bring her work to a wider, club-going audience. One, which she calls PPP (pen, paper, projector) and does regularly at an experimental mixed-media collaboration called Test Tone at Super Deluxe in Tokyo’s Nishi-Azabu, involves her covering the walls with an interconnected veil of hallucinatory lines and images to sounds of an eclectic mix of live performances. She sees herself as providing a “visual connection between the audience and the performers”. For the slightly more hi-tech Sketch Projection, she uses a Wacom tablet (kind of like a grown-up, electronic version of Etch-a-Sketch) and one or more projectors to draw and erase, with the use of negative space and audience interaction playing an important part in the creation of the images.

WEBSITE: http://www.shantellmartin.com/