‘I am interested in the dissonant relationship with the natural environment and that little space in between where we find contradiction.’
Mandy Coppes-Martin (b. 1973, Kenya) is a visual artist specializing in making both 2 and 3 dimensional art works using specific fibres such as paper thread, pulp and raw un-spun silks. She completed her Masters Degree in Fine Art where she concentrated on the development of local and invasive plant fibres for the production of specialist hand-made papers.
Coppes-Martin’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in Holland, England, Belgium and the USA as well as the Philippines.
Her works Trembling Giant and Virgin Pulp were awarded the runner-up prize in the Sasol New Signatures 2012 Art Awards. These works can be found in the Sasol Collection.
In 2016, Mandy Coppes-Martin was invited to the Paper Biennial in Rijswijk in the Netherlands and thereafter in 2017 she won the Transparency Design Competition, funded by the Swedish Embassy and curated and hosted by the University of Johannesburg.
In 2021, Coppes-Martin was honored with a QEST Scholarship (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust), which has enabled her to complete an 11 month training program with a master lace maker. She has concentrated on traditional Honiton bobbin lace, new pattern design and the development and making of new contemporary lace works that coincide with her current art practice.
Mandy Coppes-Martin’s work is held in international private and corporate collections, including RMB Rand Merchant Bank, RMBH, ABSA, Sasol and the Whitman Museum (USA). The artist currently lives and works in Stroud, UK.
“Exceptional until time of Collapse”
The thin ethereal nature of my work represents the delicate space that we, as humans, find ourselves in: the space that exists between denial and the inability to react, and that of acceptance and the ability to take responsibility. The transparency of my work, and the shadows that fall from the images complete and solidify the relationship that exists between the work, its environment and the viewer.
I am interested in the physical connection to the material, the subject matter I work with and the theoretical association with the image and the material. A distinctive aspect of my work is the imperfection, the fragmentation. It is symbolic of life itself, the world around us.
