The show currently on display from Indianapolis artist Michael “Kwazar” Martin is the sum of his creative background, which ranges from tattooing to murals. Martin often utilizes aerosols to achieve the graphic precision in graffiti styles, but for the work included in this exhibit, the medium is mainly acrylic.

For Martin, art has been a means of altering the trajectory of his life. As a justice-impacted individual, Martin has struck a balance between self expression, community building, and artistic achievement. His artwork reflects the ebbs and flows of pop culture, as many publicly influential faces have found their way onto Martin’s canvas. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney make appearances, alongside Mac Miller, who Martin describes as a “symbol of self care” and “Benny the Butcher,” portrayed in his youth “as a kid who grew up in Buffalo NY...who got caught up in the streets and later turned his life around,” becoming a hip hop phenom in his thirties.

Martin has explained the show as street art plus portrait art, an equation that comes together in the imaginative “self-portrait” called “TSA Kway.” The larger than life cartoon stands at over seven and a half feet tall and “has a story to tell,” but Martin was quiet on the details. He teased future projects that will include this colorful, bouncy character that symbolizes Martin himself.

“L-levate.” A small-scale version of the ten foot mural installation commissioned for the 2021 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Acrylic on canvas. 24” x 24”

In many ways, Martin is just getting started. He is a self-taught, emerging artist in the local scene, but his work has already landed in some big arenas: Lucas Oil Stadium and Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Additionally, his art is featured inside Tea’s Me Café and has lived on Mass. Ave (a freehanded aerosol portrait of George Floyd on temporary walls during the summer of 2020), and in Monument Circle (a ten foot tall mural installation commissioned for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, held in Indianapolis earlier this year).

“E-Kwaztion” by Kwazar Martin will be on display in the Harrison Center’s Hank & Dolly’sGallery for the month of October. The exhibit can be viewed in-person by appointment and in our online gallery, where all pieces are available for purchase.