Biography
Artist Statement
These installations (wall drawings) employ mechanical mark makers to constantly erase and carve a landscape (environment) for the viewer. They reference modern society’s removal from actual life experience in favor of artificial experience through machines and digital representations. Two ideas evolved during the process of constructing the machines.
Pulse Reflection Extractor presents the landscape as a reflection or a subtraction of space. The concentric shapes represent radar screens or global positioning systems (GPS) by which the landscape is seen only as a reflection produced by digital devices. The vacuum mechanism carves a truer image, revealing the substance of the interior landscape: the building material itself.
Untitled Horizon illustrates the idea of the simultaneously diminishing and expanding landscape. The charcoal wall represents a traditional landscape with horizon line. The eraser attempts to reconstruct the contemporary landscape that has been shrouded by the artificial constructed facade.
The mark-making machines represent solitary individuals seeking to reveal history through exploration and invention.
Bio
Martha Whittington received her B.A. in Sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute. She received her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art, where she studied with sculptor Winifred Lutz. Ms. Whittington has been the recipient of a 3 month artist residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. In support of her work, she has been awarded grants from the Office of Cultural Affairs Atlanta and Austin Green. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally with shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville Florida, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, and the AMOA-Laguna Gloria, Austin Texas. Ms. Whittington is an
Professor of Foundations Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
