Liljana Mead Martin is an artist and environmental researcher whose work explores the elemental language of environmental change. Through material and media research she gathers data from sites of land degradation in order to highlight potential adaptations or speculative fictions for experiencing a more integrated understanding of the natural world. 

In recent solo exhibitions Geophilia (WAAP ‘21) and Deep Thirst BioOrchestra (The Drake ‘22), her works respond to the results colonial land development and recent the increase of heat waves, forest fire and floods in the Pacific Northwest. In Negative [Space] Interface, her work explores the precarious expansion of housing development inside Wildlife Urban Interface zones - areas that are increasingly susceptible to forest fires - due to climate change and the absence of forest stewardship based on colonial-centred provincial and national laws. Thermal mapping and it’s associated high chroma colour palette, is a visual reference point for artworks which engage the body and hazardous conditions. Casts of ears, hands, arms and legs explore a sensorial perspective on attentiveness, perception and survival. 

Martin holds an MFA from Emily Carr University (‘16) and BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (‘10).  Her work has been exhibited at Nanaimo Art Gallery (Vancouver Island), Wil Aballe Art Projects (Vancouver), Zalucky Contemporary (Toronto) and NADA House Governor’s Island (NYC).
Martin is the Editor and founder of BIOMASS (worldwide) an online contemporary art periodical. She currently works as a Science Communicator for Conservation Decisions Lab, in the Department of Forest and Conservation Science at the University of British Columbia. 



Photo by Steven Cottingham.



LILJANA MEAD MARTIN
email: liljanameadmartin [@] gmail [.] com
IG: liljana_mead


For available works see:

Wil Aballe Art Projects  (Vancouver CA) 
https://www.waapart.com/portfolio/nada-house-2022-liljana-mead-martin/




Sink Or Shiver is a series of five sculptures presented as part of a three person exhibition at Zalucky Contemporary in 2022. The series is composed of fire charred pine, a wide range of electric pigments mixed by the artist, and resin. The forms cast from the artists body, are comprised of hands cupping bent knees and carved holes in the charred wood surfaces. The hollow shells in multi-coloured resins, become egg-like emergences bubbling out of the charred wood. At each end of the charred pine strands, carved tips mimic skate or shark eggs, also called ‘mermaids purse’. 


Exhibition excerpt:

“ The artists assembled here perform various forms of alchemy to explore the inner life of things. Their work exalts the inherent mutability of matter, the constant state of becoming that might not always be perceptible to the naked eye. Employing the corrosive power of salt, the destructive energy of fire and the transformative effects of vapour, they attempt to bear witness to the ‘changefulness’ of inanimate objects and how, in that state of flux, new forms of knowing can emerge.” 


Laura Hudspith, Liljana Mead Martin & Lee Henderson
Vessels, Orbs and Pyrophytic Pods
June 4, 2022 - July 2, 2022. Documentation by Laura Findlay.



Mod Thermal (Detail) , 2022, charred wood, resin, pigments, 60 x 5.5 x 4 inches




Installation view. 




Sink Or Shiver. 2022. charred wood, resin, pigments.




(Left) Mod Thermal, 2022, charred wood, resin, pigments, 60 x 5.5 x 4 inches
(Right) Ancient Risk, 2022, charred wood, resin, pigments, 60 x 5.5 x 4 inches




Pyrophytic Pod, 2022, charred wood, resin, pigments, 19.75 x 5.5 x 3.5 inches




Sea Weed. 2022. 26”H x 5.5” x 3.25”D. Charred wood, resin, pigments.




Installation view.

 


Sea Weed (detail), 2022. 26”H x 5.5” x 3.25”D. Charred wood, resin, pigments.


In Deep Thirst BioOrchestra, Liljana Mead Martin imagines a new botanical species, the first returners of a fire-scorched landscape. This niche ecosystem takes on hybrid characteristics of humans and plants, as ears and other appendages amalgamate with mycelium and carnivorous pitcher plant forms. They sprout and drip out of charred branches in fluorescent colours, mimicking the electric hues of thermal gradient maps, highlighting connections between temperature and inhabitability.

Within this atmosphere, the BioOrchestra produces colour as though it were sound, suggesting excretions to attract life. As a result of their emergence from drought, their sensory based digestive systems are dehydrated and in a constant state of thirst. Conductor Cues a Blaze signals an attempt to connect with destroyed aspects of our environment. Cast in several mineral layers, a pair of hands frozen in gesture rests inside the concave hollow of a fire scorched log. This terrain of the BioOrchestra is a space where life comes forth despite the deathblows of storms, fires and droughts, but it is life altered. It’s existence relies on the ways in which it is non-human, the conductor’s gesture is low and still. Instead of making music, the BioOrchestra listens for it.




BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue, 2021. Fire charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass.




BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue, Detail. 2021, Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass.




BioOrchestra; Amino Green, 2021, Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, fishing line, brass, moonstones.




BioOrchestra; Amino Green, Detail. 2021, fire charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass, moonstones.



BioOrchestra; Acid Yellow, 2021. Fire charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, fishing line, brass, moonstones.



BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue to Acid Yellow, 2021, Fire charred arbutus wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass, pins, clear and blue moonstones.



BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue to Acid Yellow, Detail. 2021, Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass, pins, clear and blue moonstones.



BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue to Amino Green, 2021, Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, brass, pins, clear and blue moonstones.




BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue to Amino Green, Detail. 2021, Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, blue moonstones.




BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue rising to Amino Green, 2021. Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, clear moonstones.




BioOrchestra; Paleo Blue rising to Amino Green, 2021. Detail. Charred wood, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, clear moonstones.




Conductor Cues a Blaze, 2021. Charred wood, hydrostone, black sand, charcoal, dry pigments, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, tubing.



Conductor Cues a Blaze. 2021, Charred wood, hydrostone, black sand, charcoal, dry pigments, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments, tubing.



Electric Preyer.
2022. Charred maple, blue moonstones, polyurethane resin, flourescent pigments.
First presented at NADA House, Governor’s Island, NY.
Exhibition details can be seen in the digital catalog, here.



Electric Preyer (series), 2022.




Cool Preyer; Paleo Blue. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, brass, fluorescent pigments.



Cool Preyer; Paleo Blue. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, brass, fluorescent pigments.



Trumpet Preyer; Amino Green. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, fluorescent pigments.



Trumpet Preyer; Amino Green. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, fluorescent pigments.




Horned Preyer; Amino Green, Paleo Blue. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, smokey moonstones, pins, fluorescent pigments.



Horned Preyer; Amino Green, Paleo Blue. 2022.
Charred wood, polyurethane rubber, smokey moonstones, pins, fluorescent pigments.




Electric Preyer; Acid Yellow, Amino Green, 2022.
Charred wood. Polyurethane rubber, moonstones, pins, fluorescent pigments.

Geophilia

March 6th - April 10th, 2021
Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP
Vancouver | waapart.com





The Listener. 
Polyurethane rubber, florescent pigment, brass stem, glass beads, charred wood. 2021. Courtesy of Wil Aballe Art Projects, photographs by Mike Love. 

Exhibition Press Release
Geophilia is a solo exhibition of new work by Liljana Mead Martin that queries the possibility of ever fully knowing the places we seek to love. Martin’s works are visceral in their tactility and bear the trace of her hybrid interests in sculpture and choreography. Hers is a practice of coming to know and unknow through touch, by probing limits and testing the pliability of the world around her. An examination of traces and fragments are key to this new series, which continues the artist’s investigation into the circulation of energy and the erosion of time.

The Listener (2021) is a charred tree trunk laid horizontally, knotted on one end by a tightly bound root bundle. New growths appear to be sprouting forth out of this nurse log in the form of brass stems and surreal fluorescent petals, with delicately flowering heads cast from the artist’s ear. Feeders (2021) is an accumulation of spiny pinchers, fingery protrusions amassed in a crowded formation that resemble barnacles. Conical mounds budding skywards, Drifting flex (2021) consists of bent elbows poised as though readied to unfurl. Throughout Geophilia, the body is understood as a tool that creates an imprint on the earth, whilst simultaneously assuming postures that mimic various forms of life. Disinterested in anthropomorphizing the botanical or the geological, Martin is instead devoted to new ways of being in relation with the surrounding environment. If terraforming is the process of making earth habitable for humans, Martin proposes an opposite action: remaking humanness in order to accommodate the feeling world.  Her works directly challenge any presumption of the world as unfeeling, inanimate, or unconscious.

The sculptures are gestural in their grasping, caressing, overflowing, caving inwards or hollowing out. Frequently, Martin casts hands that evoke digging movements, but she also buries things inside her casts: sand, soil, juniper, and dried flowers, as well as insulation, plastics, fungicide and scrap metals. This process of worlding is not purist, but grapples with the contemporary realities of toxicity and contamination. Taken together, the complex material accretions are attentive to overlapping and entirely incompatible lifespans, contradictions that can make a place so difficult to know.



The Listener. Detail. 2021, polyurethane rubber, florescent pigment, brass stem, glass beads, charred wood.



The Listener II. 2021, polyurethane rubber, florescent pigment, brass stem, charred wood. 







the ground doesn’t wander. 2021, heat warped tinted-acrylic.




the ground doesn’t wander. 2021, heat warped tinted-acrylic.



Feeders. 2021, hydrostone, ink, iron oxide, black sand, soil, powdered pearl, on wooden base. Variable dimensions.




Feeders, Detail, 2021, hydrostone, ink, iron oxide, black sand, soil, powdered pearl, on wooden base. Variable dimensions. 





Transmutations. 2021, hydrostone, plaster, soil, ink, iron oxide, black sand, dry pigments, wooden base. Variable dimensions. 



Drifting flex (blue vitriol).Detail, 2021, hydrostone, sand, soil, copper sulphite, ink, on wooden base. 2021.



Drifting flex, 2021, hydrostone, ink, iodine, powdered pearl, black sand, iron oxide powder, soil, on wooden base. 




Conduits I,II,III. 2021, Heat treated steel, double-sided ink monoprints on paper, acrylic cylinders.




Geophilia (panorama). 2021, Courtesy of Wil Aballe Art Projects. 




Geophilia ( entry panorama). 2021, Courtesy of Wil Aballe Art Projects.


Negative [Space] Interface. 2021

Ink monoprints on paper, on panel.




Included in BIOMASS, Volume 1. Eve Tagny, Alexis L.-Grisé, Liljana Mead Martin, Emily Chudnovsky, Steven Cottingham and Justin Apperley.


BIOMASS looks at art through the lifecycle of material and energy. Artists consider their practices in highly dimensional ways, BIOMASS brings these realities and nuances to the fore through featured works and dialogues on practice.

The term biomass is used most often within the energy industry, typically to describe forms of burnable “waste” material used to create heat and electricity. The term’s origins are more overt, bio means life, mass means volume. From these two meanings we find a charged yet expanded perspective through which to experience art and its making.


    Exhibition interview excerpt:
“ This year I began a new body of research, stemming from a curiosity in west coast forests and some zoning terminology called the Wildland Urban Interface or WUI zones. It’s basically a transition zone between what is considered wildland and new areas of human development, often these are on the fringes of more densely populated areas, in wilder areas. Communities in these zones are very vulnerable to wildfires and in simple terms their presence disrupts an existing ecology. But it’s complicated, because as cities become more expensive people want to have their own space - causing drift and sprawl in areas that can’t necessarily sustain that many people. I mean, it takes tons of energy and resources to extend the grid. I was drawing from that research to create these works that suggest architectural shapes, specifically thresholds to homes or buildings.”


    For the full interview and exhibition see, https://biomasssss.com/




Negative [Space] Interface. 2021, ink monoprints on paper, on panel.




Negative [Space] Interface. 2021, ink monoprints on paper, on panel.




Installation view. 2021, ink monoprints on paper, on panel.




Negative [Space] Interface. 2021, ink monoprints on paper, on panel.




Installation view. 2021, ink monoprints on paper, on panel.