AMERICA MARTIN

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AMERICA MARTIN is an internationally represented Colombian-American fine artist based in Los Angeles. America is a painter and a sculptor. The magnetic pull of Martin’s work is authentic, generated by both her ability to express a unique gesture that speaks to a universal truth (thus, we recognize it instantly) and her exceptional skill at rendering that truth via the human form. She pulls from the stylistic lessons of the classics and its derivations in indigenous subject matter, while redefining what it is to combine abstract and indigenous motifs.

Martin’s art and personality encapsulates a sense of enthusiasm and hope. While born in the USA, the roots of America’s Colombian heritage deeply penetrate her work. People are Martin’s dominant subject. They are large in size, vivacious and accessible, and seem to burst out of the limits of each canvas or sculpture. Within this pulsating interplay of color, texture, line, and shapes, there is always America’s signature expression that identifies each work as an America Martin.

Born in Los Angeles, CA 1980
Splits time between Los Angeles and Flagstaff

Education

1995 – 1998 Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences
1990 – 1998 Apprenticeship with Vernon Wilson, Professor of Painting and Drawing, Art Center College of Design
1998 – 1999 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024
JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA – Feb.
J. Willott Gallery, Palm Springs, CA – March
Carver Hill Gallery, Rockland, ME – August
JoAnne Artman Gallery, New York, NY – Sept.
TEW Galleries, Atlanta, GA – November

2023
Maternity Bliss

2022
JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA – Spring
JoAnne Artman Gallery, New York, NY – Fall
Centro Austin, TX Public Art – Mosaic Commission
TEW Galleries, Atlanta, GA – April
Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX – December

Programs & Awards

2017
U.S. Department of State’s Office of Art in Embassies Program
OBO/OPS/ART
Washington, D.C. 20522-0611

Prioritizing the figure as a central focal point throughout her career, Martin’s imagery is allegorical, familiar, and above all, hopeful. Exhilaratingly fluid and densely rich, the works examine the principles of figuration, portraiture, and the body’s environments. Optimistic in her strokes, omnipresent throughout the narrative, and original in her inspirations, Martin reimagines her preferred subjects of reclined women amidst nature and performing musicians. Maintaining her signature bold line and massive, solid figures across a variety of mediums, Martin’s emotive marks are an assimilation of light, pigment, movement, and an incomparable emphasis on storytelling.

 

Through radical forms and an unmistakable aesthetic sensibility, Martin experiments with line weight and function as a tool for two dimensional representation of three dimensionality. Creating a new balance between solidity, mass, and suggestion, thick lines are filled with the bubbling energy of thin, long scrapes throughout their length – adding both intensity and depth. New modes of expression emerge from continued internal and formal investigations, informed and characterized by Martin’s Colombian heritage with a focus on the anecdotal and symbolic.