Korey Martin (b. 1989) is a pencil-on-paper artist. He draws All Things, and in so doing, simultaneously draws the universe, the great many things within it as well as himself, having all emerged from some shared, single source at the beginning of everything before going on to be, in some topological fashion, temporarily arranged as this or that.

-----

Korey's drawings are a method for contemplating the countless arrangements that the universe has placed around him as well as mindfully participate in this eternal process. His is reverent towards the feeling that all things are indeed variations on the same thing--the universe itself--so to draw any single thing is to simultaneously draw the universe, including himself. This feels to him like an intuitive, embodied knowledge that he is constantly "reminded of" rather than taught--a fleeting homecoming. 

Not unlike the musical or floral arrangement, Korey plays the oldest standard--nature, the universe, god--and hopes for his drawings to emphasize the faint sense of recognition between the self and all things--all often quite still yet carrying a great momentum as things "in the midst of things".

By focusing not just upon the "appearance" of things, but their total experience--how it feels to behold life--his drawings attempt to evoke a somatic, pre-intellectual response by doing with drawing what cannot be done with words.In this sense, Korey's drawings are beyond what he "thinks" of them, their subject, himself, and attempt instead to speak directly to intuition, thereby exploring forms of realism not restricted by visual fidelity or intellectual congruity. He seeks a suprasensory likeness or spiritual realism unbound by, but affectionate towards form as phenomena emerging from all that cannot be described through form. As the saying goes, the eye cannot look upon itself.

As with many practices exploring the nature of reality and direct perception, drawing one more method to "clean the mirror" of the mind and spirit so that it may better reflect all that it reflects--a practice which maintains a playful curiosity for all that vitalizes the senses and aids him in his efforts to discover life as it truly is rather than as he believes it to be. Nevertheless, many perspectives make their way to his drawings, including belief, however impossible or silly they may be, resulting in a dissonance between things as they appear within and beyond the drawing. 

Dissonance and the perception of incongruity are vital, in that they are a reminder of the incomplete view, the impossibility of a total vista or that one can reach "complete" knowing through intellect, the inaccessibility of the horizon, and of the necessity of circumambulation. Humorously, this is reality vs expectation.

Finally, it reminds him that things are beyond judgement, beyond description, for a thing takes on as many forms as there are views of it. In this manner, he allows his work to be beyond him and his explanations, but deeply and ecstatically of and for himself. Just as he is made of and arranged amongst the universe, so too are his drawings.

While his drawings may be personal, Korey Martin often works as an illustrator for friends and strangers, near and far. His work has appeared in magazines, anthologies and college journals, on clothing, used by restaurants and hospitality services, branding for small businesses, a perfumery laboratory and even an elementary school library. Recent clients include Clue Perfumery, Popeye Magazine & Actual Source Books.

Press/Writing