I sculpt stainless steel into transparent, luminous figures that echo the wind, light, and elemental energy of Saint-Barthélemy.
Jean Martin’s artistic journey began when he relocated to Saint-Barthélemy and worked in a stainless-steel workshop creating elements for the island’s contemporary villas. Immersed in an environment shaped by wind, water, and intense Caribbean light, he became fascinated by the raw strength of these natural forces—a fascination that soon guided his transition from welder to sculptor. His mastery of welding allowed him to explore the material in unconventional ways: twisting, cutting, reassembling, and polishing steel until it gained a new expressive dimension. Polishing became fundamental to his practice, giving each sculpture its characteristic radiance.
One of Jean Martin’s most distinctive choices is his use of stainless-steel nuts as building blocks. He likens them to atoms—universal units of matter—capable of representing any form or idea. Through years of experimentation, he refined a technique that arranges these nuts into a delicate lacework, producing figures that are simultaneously solid and transparent, present and discreet. This transparency allows the sculptures to integrate harmoniously into architectural or natural settings.
Many of Jean Martin’s works reinterpret classical mythology—gods, goddesses, and elemental spirits such as “Aeolus” or “Tethis.” What draws him to these themes is the “divine side” of mythological beings: humanlike in form but imbued with supernatural power. His sculptures have no faces, emphasizing that mortals cannot fully identify with immortals.
Jean Martin’s sculptures are conceived to interact with their environment. Outdoors—in gardens, near water, under bright sun—they become silhouettes that breathe with the wind and reflect the landscape through their open structure. Indoors, particularly in colder climates, their transparency is less pronounced, shifting focus toward the precision of their assembly and the brilliance of their polish.
Jean Martin is a French sculptor based in Saint-Barthélemy, renowned for his elegant stainless-steel statues composed of hundreds of meticulously welded metal nuts. A former professional welder, Martin transforms industrial materials into luminous, ethereal figures that seem to breathe with the wind and reflect the shifting light of their surroundings.
Jean Martin’s artworks are exhibited and collected worldwide. They can be found in the United States, France, London, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Izmir, Tel Aviv, and of course throughout Saint-Barthélemy, where the harmony between sculpture, sunlight, and ocean elements is most pronounced.