Featured Piece: “Northern Lights” by Marni Martin

Marni Martin’s “Northern Light, Algonquin”

By: Leona Nikolic

Working within the complex dialogue of craft vs art, Muskoka-based textile artist Marni Martin merges the precise craft of weaving fibres with the intense artistic impulse of creative expression. A graduate of Canada’s renowned Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Martin’s textile works have been featured at the Algonquin Art Centre over the past decade. Like her regional peers, Martin’s work is often visually derived from her surroundings of natural landscapes and wilderness. Much of her body of work is rendered in a realist manner with great attention to detail, colour, and composition. In Martin’s own words, these textile works “[embody] the lines and rhythms of the natural world.” Thus, these representations of the natural world not only appear visually accessible and accurate to the eye, but they also convey a certain sense of awe, mystique, and subliminality that has guided Canadian landscape art for well over a century. Bridging the obscure gap between craft and art, Martin’s work is both; neither skilful attention of the weaving practise nor the essence of creative intent is compromised.

While Martin produces realistically rendered natural scenes – unambiguous voyeuristic snapshots of her surroundings like Ablaze and Autumn Leaves which can be viewed at the Algonquin Art Centre – she explores more abstracted forms of representation as well. Northern Lights, featured in the AAC’s special exhibition Algonquin at Night, is a carefully patterned masterpiece evoking the natural phenomenon of the aurora borealis. Striking in its simplicity, Northern Lights stands out amongst the hyper-detailed night-time scenes surrounding it. With this piece, Martin distils the dazzling visual experience of the aurora borealis into pure corporeal sensation in the minimalistic jagged gradient of purple to pink to green to blue of the soft woven texture. A long, loose fringe hangs at the base of the tapestry, unwoven, confessing its absolute materiality and utilitarian potential.