Biography
To understand my work and to absorb the complexity of the Caranda-Martin oeuvre one first has to understand where I am from and how I’ve lived my life. I grew up in the small West African nation of Liberia in an idyllic setting free from the strife that lay just below the surface of the entire African continent. My young adulthood was interrupted by the onset of the Liberian civil war. Living through the beginning of this war with its attendant loss and difficulties led me down a tumultuous path which eventually brought me to the United States and to the way I have learned to contextualize this experience. If my artistic endeavors have been about any one idea, it is simply put, to be a vehicle to bridge the gap of understanding between indigenous or tribal cultures and the modern world. The common objective of my work is to create images that capture the humanity and reality of emotions.
In my photographs, one sees the beauty and serenity of the African experience but one also sees the suppressed hopes and restrained desires that equally speak to this experience. My photographic technique employs many devices, and in several works it resembles the way a painter might use pigments, using chemical etching, film, etched glass, silk ink transfer or liquid emulsions. The strength of the emotive presence in my images comes from a passion for non-traditional and spontaneous printing techniques and methods. The work is often shown in multiples allowing a multiplicity of imagery while still conveying one cohesive idea. This broadens the view expanding far into the periphery to create an installation that conveys a sense of place. When painting is added into this mix, often combined with assemblage techniques, further complexities are layered in each with its own narrative. Color, language, and imagery are all employed to create a tension between the narrative and the abstract.
