Corinne Martin: Empowering Change Through Art

Courtesy of Corinne Martin

Truly a multicultural by-product--having been born in Paris, raised in Beirut, educated in Houston, and now living in Riyadh--Corinne Martin interprets iconography of contemporary Arab pop culture derived from television, music, food, and fashion through her mixed media and paintings. She’s also very interested in the notion of the region being a meeting point between Western and Eastern sensibilities and the role globalization plays amidst that. “After returning to the Middle East, I was able to experience my roots both as an adult and as an artist from a fresh perspective,” she says. “The region is experiencing immense cultural growth and has a new, rejuvenating energy that inspires and infuses my work.”

Courtesy of Corinne Martin

I could not help but gravitate towards her retro-esque paintings of popular and iconic symbols of Arab pop culture. Having grown up and currently based in the Arabian Gulf myself, Martin's work depicts an intensely, immediately familiar world of images, an integral part of my particular visual universe – for example, the imagery of Miranda or popular washing detergent, Tide [above] conveyed in Arabic script. “I’ve always drawn inspiration from those iconic images as they reflect the experiences of a younger generation of Arabs who came of age between the East and West,” Corinne says. “They have shaped our visual culture, which is why [my] kind of art resonates with so many people as it has an emotional connection to their past.”

The colors of her works are undeniably mint fresh – and yet, they also possess the feel of vintage posters and labels, the colors possessing a hyper-real bleached quality. The works’ effect is to render you nostalgic – while simultaneously able to re-live that past in the present.