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J. Michelle Martin-Coyne

Tour Buses in Spain, July 2007, Kodak Endura Print

::World Tour 2007 Web Gallery::


::J. Michelle Martin Coyne 2008 Exhibition Page::

::I Was An Inflatable Sun Web Gallery::



::J. Michelle Martin Coyne 2005 Exhibition Page::

Limited Edition of 5 prints available.
Call 405-292-8095 for more information.

J. Michelle Martin-Coyne
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Exhibitions
2008 'World Tour 2007', MAINSITE Contemporary Art, Norman, OK.
2007 Oklahoma Visual Artist Coalition, Oklahoma City, OK.
2007 LIT, Oklahoma City, OK.
2006 'Cat Collection', OPOLIS, Norman, OK.
2005 'I Was An Inflatable Sun', MAINSITE Contemporary Art, Norman, OK.
2005 EPOXYBOX, Venice, CA.
2004 'Waking Up With a Placebo Headwound', OPOLIS, Norman ,OK.

Publications
2003 Waking Up With A Placebo Headwound 1987-2004: Images of the Flaming Lips From the Archives of Jay Blakesberg and J. Michelle Martin-Coyne (Hardcover)
Rolling Stone Magazine, Paste Magazine, Spin Magazine, list includes many other Rock and Roll music magazines featuring images of the Flaming Lips.

Education
1991 Bachelors of Fine Arts, Oklahoma University, Norman, OK.

Artist Statement, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne
World Tour 2007:

This collection will not contain the more obvious pictures of a ‘World Tour with The Flaming Lips: Wayne in the bubble, crazy fans, Steven in a guitar trance, Michael sitting stoically in a cloud of confetti, etc…
My intention is to show the other less celebrated side of touring: The calm before the storm, the aftermath, and the private corner beyond the crowd, the toilets… These pictures are impressions of moments that hopefully reveal a mood or atmosphere that is in contrast to the usual mayhem or is at the very least unexpected of a rock show.
In college, as a painting student, I picked up a camera as a way of doing something more spontaneous. I became a devotee of Tri-x film because the grain of the Tri-x film was larger than other film, which made it seem more mysterious and magical. The over exaggerated grain reminded me of pressing my face up against the huge old console TVs of my youth and discovering the thousands of tiny lights that really made up the pictures.
The more I pushed the film (changing the exposure time and the duration of its sitting in the development chemistry), the grainier it became, and the precision of the picture started to dissolve away and more was left to the imagination. I liked it. I loved it.
As years wore on, I had begun regularly taking pictures for Wayne and his band. Soon, as the band became more popular, the demand for more photos began happening much more frequently. Digital cameras had become more affordable, so we bought one. At first I missed the darkroom, plus the low-fi look of the pictures was frustrating…
Then digital cameras improved, and I began to see how much like darkroom manipulation a computer could be with applications like Photoshop. The digital pixels began to grow on me as I thought of them as a more modern sort of film grain. I also liked not having so much chemistry to dispose of as well. I wasn’t wasting paper trying to get the print right because it was all worked out before it was printed. (Granted that came after many tears mastering my printer…)
The truth is, my digital camera has given me instant gratification. It is modern and immediate. It is often better than ‘real’ life. Or maybe, it introduces a dreamlike quality that expresses more fully the emotions and intensity that are actually in ‘real’ life.
It exaggerates those qualities and makes an ordinary moment more potent and pleasurable.

J.Michelle Martin-Coyne