A Conversation with Delita Martin

Photo credit: Taylor M. Hayden
TMH Creative

Ep.94 features Delita Martin, an artist currently based in Huffman, Texas. She received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and a MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Formally a member of the fine arts faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Martin is currently working as a full-time artist in her studio, Black Box Press.

Primarily working from oral traditions, along with vintage and family photographs as a source of inspiration; Martin’s work explores the power of the narrative impulse.

Her finished works combine collaging, drawing, painting, printmaking, and sewing techniques, placing her figures amid patterns to visually represent what it looks like when we become the spiritual other: when we pray or meditate … we enter the veilscape.” Martin’s layering of technique and material, as well as her use of pattern and color, signifies a liminal space – the space between the waking life and the spirit life. By fusing this visual language with oral storytelling in this different space she offers other identities and other narratives for women of color.

Martin’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Most recently Martin’s work was shown at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC and welcomed into the Library of Congress. She served as 2020 Keynote speaker for the Mid America Print Council.

Current group exhibition at the Claire Oliver Gallery : A Contemporary Black Matriarchal Lineage in Printmaking. Thru March 19,2022.

Artist  https://blackboxpressstudio.com/

Black Box Press Foundation https://www.blackboxpressfoundation.org/

Claire Oliver Gallery https://www.claireoliver.com/exhibits/a-contemporary-black-matriarchal-lineage-in-printmaking/

NMWA https://nmwa.org/exhibitions/delita-martin-calling-down-spirits/

Galerie Myrtis  http://galeriemyrtis.net/delita-martin-bio/

Crystal Bridges https://stateoftheart.crystalbridges.org/blog/project/delita-martin/

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delita_Martin

Nicole Longnecker Gallery  https://longneckergallery.com/artist/delita-martin Save

Conclave
90”x 150”
Mixed Media
Medium: Acrylic, Relief Printing, Charcoal Drawing, Decorative Papers, Fabric, Hand Stitching, Liquid Gold Leaf, Vintage Jewels
Creation Date: 2019