Suzette Marie Martin is a figurative painter based in New England.
She uses archetypal figures, the narrative potential of body language, scientific data, and allusions to mythology to examine the existential trauma of environmental collapse.
Martin's practice, rooted in drawing and developed in series, is informed by observational studies, art historical reference and topical research. Her combinations of wet and dry media create layers of gestural and textural marks, erasures, opaque passages and translucent washes that expose a working process of obscuring and revealing elements of figuration, text and abstraction.
Martin’s early career included museum and gallery exhibitions with artists of the New York Neo-Expressionist movement. She returned to full-time studio practice in 2018, following an extended hiatus as a single mother, supporting her family as an arts educator, free-lance illustrator and digital media specialist.
Recent recognition includes:
2023 Artist in Residence and solo exhibition, Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
2022 Keynote speaker and solo exhibition of “Viral Load” series at "Never Not in Crisis: Forms of Calamity in Catastrophic Times Symposium", Myers Foundation Grant, Northwestern University and 6018North Center for Experimental Arts and Culture, Chicago.
2021-2022 Online exhibitions with The Post Carbon Institute, Stanford University.
2020-21 "Airborne Transmission, Prayer Flags for the Pandemic" 1/3 mile long public park installation in association with North Adams, MA Public Arts Commission.
2019 Resident Artist and solo exhibition at the Edward Hopper House Museum.
2019 "Naiads of the New World" drawing series featured in Orion Magazine, Autumn edition.
CV
Suzette Marie Martin
