THE IMPULSE OF NOSTALGIA: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTINA HANNA
Martina Hanna is an artist currently based in New Jersey. Combining painting, video, and performance art, her work explores the effect pop culture and nostalgia have on our individual psyches. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Rutgers University.
In its simplest form, Martina’s work is an impulsitionary reaction to the social and political climate around her. Although primarily a painter, she explores these issues using different methods such as video, media installations, performance, and drawing. A common theme found in all mediums is the idea of layers. Whether layers of paint or multiple layers of thoughts and ideas in a piece, there is always a cohesive collaboration of thought processes that can be observed.
She draws most of her influence from personal experiences, as well as current events, pop culture, and strong women and often uses her experience as a first generation immigrant and Egyptian heritage to come to terms and cope with western ideas. As far as visual and stylistic elements, her work is heavily inspired by street art and graffiti as well as from abstract expressionism.
Most recently, the work she’s produced has the tendency of exploring themes of the influence pop culture has on society as she perceives it and how she copes with her emotional connections to it.
