Courtesy the artist, Copyright Roy Rochlin

Spring 2017

Internationally celebrated visual artist, performer and storyteller Shantell Martin will be in residence at the University at Buffalo March 11 to June 25 as part of the university’s Creative Arts Initiative (CAI) offering a multifaceted program that will include the opening of her first solo museum exhibition, titled “Someday We Can,” at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and creation of a permanent public mural in Buffalo's Eastside neighborhood.

Martin’s residency, provided in cooperation with the Albright-Knox, also will involve free public talks and the creation of a permanent outdoor mural on Buffalo’s East Side, in connection with the gallery’s Public Art Initiative

Exhibiting Martin’s works in the museum while simultaneously executing a permanent outdoor mural is intended to make a public statement that beautiful and inspiring creative work belongs to communities and should be presented in neighborhoods.

Martin’s work is described as a “meditation of lines; a language of characters, creatures and messages that invite viewers to share a role in her creative process.” She is a former visiting scholar at MIT Media Lab and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Martin has been featured on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and her hand-illustrated bedroom walls graced the cover of The New York Times home section in May 2012. Her work has appeared in Creative Review Magazine, and she was named French Glamour’s “coolest it girl” of New York in 2011.