Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Deborah Martin (born June 9, 1961) is a contemporary American Realist Painter, Fine Art Photographer and curator. A site-specific artist, her work eulogizes the abandoned habitats and domestic landscapes of small town America.
In her continued exploration of American landscapes, Martin has turned her attention to two landmark "saline" sites in the United States known for their distinctive inhabitants, nontraditional social ecology, and unique architecture: the Salton Sea and the Outer Cape area of Cape Cod. "Home on the Strange: In Search of the Salton Sea" is based on Polaroids taken over a period of four years, depicting various aspects of the reality of life on the Salton Sea. "The Narrow Lands" is a transdisciplinary project documenting the architectural geography of history and time along the Outer Cape.
Martin is probably best known for her paintings of the blasted communities that surround the Salton Sea. But she paints other parts of the California desert as well, and has also painted the rural American south, the nether parts of Cape Cod, and other places in this country where society dissolves and individuals find solitude whether or not they seek it.
What interests Martin – whose pictures are full of human presence but devoid of humans – is not the mundane or the abject, but how habitation seems only to amplify the emptiness of the land itself. In this respect she extends Edward Hopper’s lonely realms into the context of “new topographic” photography.
Works
PureAmericaHome on the Strange: In Search of the Salton SeaThe Narrow LandsExhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2011 "Wonder Valley", New Paintings by Deborah Martin, The Red Arrow Gallery, Joshua Tree, CA2011 "Narrow Lands", Patty DeLuca Gallery, Provincetown, MA2010 Home on the Strange: In Search of the Salton Sea Deborah Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2009 America, New Work by Deborah Martin, Phyllis Stein Art, Los Angeles, CASelected Group Exhibitions
2012 George Billis Gallery, Culver City, CA2011 The School House Gallery, Provincetown, MA2011 Valley of the Ancient Lake: Works Inspired by the Salton Sea, The Salton Sea History Museum, North Shore, CA2011 Threads, The Factory Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2010 The School House Gallery, Provincetown, MA2010 Refuge, Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA2010 Flash Backs, Samuel Francis Gallery, Santa Monica, CA2009 Home, A video Installation by Mia Babalis and New Paintings by Deborah Martin, Deborah Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2009 LA2OC Emphasis Extreme, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA1999 Polaroids New work by Deborah Martin, The School House, Driskel Gallery, Provincetown, MA1998 Pure The Photography of Deborah Martin, The School House, Driskel Gallery, Provincetown, MAEducation
1992 BFA Master of Arts in teaching, School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA 1992 BS Art Education, Tufts University
Grants
Orlowsky Freed Foundation Grant Sponsored in part by the Lilian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation Grant and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
