Orion Martin

Martin collected images from various sources to create a surrealistic composite in which an impeccably described boot floats in front of an androgynous head whose fuzzy rendering evokes an out of focus pixelation. In this five-plate etching the top of the boot breaks with
the traditional rectangle through the use of shaped plates. Martin utilized the physicality of different etching processes to sculpt the opposing aesthetics—aquatint with burnishing to create the sensual highlights and shadows of the hyperrealistic boot, and soft ground drawn with the thick tip of a worn down colored pencil to create the out of focus head. It is the disparity between the processes that also creates the space in this work, allowing the boot to pop forward and the soft head to recede. The boot, its dimensionality luscious and alluring, arouses the desire to touch, but as your fingertips move closer the illusion disappears, flattening before you. The boot is anthropomorphically reminiscent of high fashion and sexualized body parts, grommets pressing into the flesh-like surface and laces crisscrossing over the lips of the piping. This is cooled down by the head that floats sexless and expressionless in the background, unaffected by what’s right in front of its eyes, the proverbial cold shower.

In the studio