fig® - Downtown Lancaster

The first time I saw Zhanna Martin’s work, I was walking on State Street past Bryn Mawr Trust Bank’s window art display. This is a goldmine for any art enthusiast, as it’s been known to house works of great Media artists like Seth Mushrush and others. I contacted Ms. Martin because I could not stop thinking about her work entitled “Waiting.”

"Waiting"

It took a while to get an interview with Zhanna because her pieces take a great deal of time to complete. Zhanna is a stay-at-home mom with two small children to look after during the day. When her supportive husband is at home, she works in her basement boiler room studio or in a studio at the Community Arts Center, where she is able to create in four-hour blocks once a week. With an artist working with clay that can take as long as up to a month (depending on thickness of a piece) to dry before it can be fired, no wonder it took us so long to connect! But like the sculpture whose image was burned into my head, I waited.

To look at Zhanna Martin’s breathtaking sculptures, you’d never know she was once an architect. To the untrained eye, the shockingly lifelike expressions on the faces of her works look like they took years of training and studying to master. But despite what their precision may convey to the passerby, Zhanna Martin has only been sculpting since 2009.

"Aha Moment"

The Russian-born artist spent her childhood dabbling with every form of art she could get her hands on. She started with painting and did a few figurines for a neighbor who encouraged her art. From there, she did collage, painted with acrylic, oil and watercolors. She practiced woodworking and decorative painting and even interior design. When it came time to choose a career path, she decided to study architecture, though she was more interested in the artistic side than in the engineering aspects of that field. Zhanna embraced architecture until she was laid off in 2009.

Instead of mourning her loss, she decided to embrace new possibilities and, with the support of her husband, began sculpting. As a sculptor, she was able use the skills learned as an architect in a hands-on way. Though she had limited exposure to clay, she relied on her intuition in her creative process. In sculpting one of her earliest pieces, “Aha Moment,” she admits everything went wrong. As an artist, it’s hard for Zhanna to look past the flaws in her work, but to the rest of us, her talent is undeniable.

"Two Sides of Me"

Like “Waiting” and “Aha Moment,” Zhanna’s pieces often focus on human expressions. She explained that her pieces are meant to try to capture the dysfunction inherent in human emotions. Emotions, she explained, are what make us human. Though she does not deem her works classically beautiful, she does appreciate the humor and the beautiful distortion of her work and of human emotions in general. Zhanna is drawn to the differing emotions that are part of being human, which she displays in her piece “Two Sides of Me.”

That window display turned a lot of heads in Media. From that display, Zhanna landed her first show sale, which will be held on December 3 at the 15th Annual holiday show of The Hometown Collective. The show will be held at the Providence Friends Meeting House on 105 North Providence Road in Media. This is her first of many shows to come.

For more information and to see more of Zhanna’s amazing work, log onto her website!

—Nina J. Davidson

Nina is an aspiring novelist and New Jersey native. A little over a year ago, she moved to Media, and it has been the best decision she has ever made. She finds great joy in living here and tells everyone she meets about the magic of Media. Nina is honored to share her love of Media through this blog. She looks forward to meeting more artists and sharing their stories with you here on a biweekly basis.