Christopher Martin’s
A Rose by Any Other Name (2023) fuses the poetic and the political, the personal and the universal. Executed in his signature black-and-white palette, the work depicts a stylized human figure emerging from the petals of a blooming rose — its stem bound by a broken chain. With bold contour lines and symbolic clarity, Martin transforms a seemingly delicate image into one of strength, transcendence, and rebirth.
The composition’s central figure appears calm and resolute, their body entwined with the organic form of the flower. The rose, long a symbol of love and identity, becomes a vessel for liberation — a metaphor for beauty born from struggle. The chain at the base, rendered with graphic precision, suggests the history of constraint and the enduring will to overcome. This duality — between fragility and resilience, captivity and freedom — forms the core of Martin’s visual language.
In A Rose by Any Other Name, Martin explores the layered meanings of names, labels, and the systems that seek to define identity. The title, borrowed from Shakespeare, takes on new resonance in his hands — an interrogation of how perception and power shape value, both in human life and in art. The figure, neither wholly masculine nor feminine, invites multiplicity and challenges fixed categories.
The stark contrast of black and white heightens the emotional and symbolic tension of the piece. It evokes both historical references — protest banners, liberation iconography, heraldic emblems — and contemporary minimalism. The result is a timeless aesthetic that bridges past and present, art and activism.
A Rose by Any Other Name stands as an emblem of transformation. In Martin’s hands, the rose becomes not merely a symbol of beauty, but of reclamation — a declaration that identity, like art, cannot be contained by the names imposed upon it.
