Nasta Martyn is a graphic artist, illustrator, poet, and writer based in Poland.
Academically connected to art, through her bachelor’s degree in design, Martyn experiments primarily with abstract collage artwork. Her bold and striking compositions are tributes to primary colors and transcendentalism.
Vibrant and multilayered artworks carry a significant amount of symbolism. Through the use of paper and other organic materials, such as fruit, eggshells, or leaves, the artist explores themes of humanity’s place in nature, our push-and-pull between coexistence and self-sabotage of pollution.
Topics of ecology and environmentalism are close to Martyn. In 2005 she created a series of graphics dedicated to the Chernobyl disaster, as well as a drawn series titled “The Red Book,” dedicated to endangered animal species.
Martyn’s cold and choleric collages are smelted into an array of poetic and chaotic visual experiences. Through geometric, multilayered concepts featuring a primary and limited palette, the use of unexpected materials beyond usual magazine cutouts (such as eggshells, toilet paper, and various other objects), and a forced combination that brings them together into a single image, the artist denotes a lack of interest in conformity and a search for primal symmetry.
She reminds us that the collage artistry does not rely solely on paper overlapping, but that it is, in fact, metaphysically limitless, stretching far beyond commonly agreed-upon and self-imposed parameters.
Read our “Roots” issue in full
The new theme, born as usual from what the submitted works held in common, is “ROOTS.” Within its pages, we present the artworks, creativity, and inspiration of 60 visual artists and writers from 21 countries around the world. Their diverse voices come together around a shared exploration of the return to where one belongs, the invisible threads of tradition that shape identity, and the ongoing reconnection with nature, others, and oneself.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
