In her quintessential style, Heather Gwen Martin has hand-picked a distinctive and vibrant color palette to ensconce the exterior of the three-story tower on the Drury Lane side of 7724 Girard Ave. (Lapiz Building). Replacing Kim MacConnel’s “Girl from Ipanema,” Martin’s artwork is also painted directly on the building.
The mural installation is under way and is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 23. The prominent, brilliant orange ground is interrupted by tributaries of other colors, creating a dynamic abstract composition. Large gestural shapes are broken up by delicate sinews of color creating a sense of layering and depth. Her boldly experimental color combinations interplay strategically with one another to affect the way the viewer perceives form, color, and space. Martin’s organic composition counters the geometric lines of the building as it dissolves into a biomorphic world of curves.
Martin is a painter, primarily working in oil on large-scale linen canvases. She delves deeply into the world of color theory and abstraction. The forms she creates teeter between complete abstraction and loose suggestion towards referential objects and forms. Her two-dimensional work boldly plays with how to evoke a sense of space through color relationships. Martin’s choices of color and composition experiment with how to induce the viewer’s physical and mental stimuli to augment the perception of space. Martin was born in Canada. She received her BA from the UCSD and continued her education at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While in art school, worked as comic book colorist using digital media to render comics. Her experience with digital art inspired her to return to painting and explore her deep connection to the hand-made. She has been a part of many notable solo and group exhibitions in Southern California. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Murals of La Jolla offers tours the last Wednesday of the month starting at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library at 5:30 p.m. RSVPs are suggested. To date, works by Terry Allen, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Mark Bradford, Kelsey Brookes, Gajin Fujita, Anya Gallaccio, Robert Ginder, Ann Hamilton, Robert Irwin/Philipp ScholzRittermann, Nina Katchadourian, Byron Kim/Victoria Fu, Jean Lowe, Kim MacConnel, Ryan McGinness, Roy McMakin, Richard Allen Morris, Catherine Opie, Julian Opie, Marcos Ramirez ERRE, Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Fred Tomaselli, and William Wegman have been installed throughout La Jolla. Seven of these murals have been replaced or temporarily removed. Overall, 24 murals have been commissioned since 2010.
Murals of La Jolla was founded by the La Jolla Community Foundation and is now a project of the Athenaeum. The goal of the mural project is to enhance the civic character of the community by commissioning public art projects on private property throughout La Jolla. Murals of La Jolla Art Advisory Committee is composed of the heads of the major visual arts organizations who commission artists to propose the intervention of an image on specific walls on privately owned buildings. The first two artworks by Roy McMakin and Kim MacConnel were painted directly on their sites.  Subsequent artworks have been printed on vinyl and installed on billboard-like structures. Each work is on view for a minimum of two years and has been generously funded by private donations. 
The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, located in the heart of La Jolla, is one of only 16 nonprofit membership libraries in the United States. This rare cultural institution offers a depth and accessibility of resources and programs found nowhere else in the region including one of the most significant collections of artists’ books in Southern California. The Athenaeum also presents a year-round schedule of art exhibitions, concerts (classical, jazz, acoustic and new music), lectures, studio art classes through its School of the Arts, tours and special events.
For more information, visit www.ljathenaeum.org and www.muralsoflajolla.com.