ABOUT THE ARTIST

Molly Martin is a painter whose work explores womanhood, nature, preservation, and the passage of time. Drawing from daguerreotypes, tintypes, and other nineteenth-century photographs of women whose names and stories have largely been lost, she considers what is preserved, what disappears, and how these women might be brought into renewed presence. In her oil portraits, Martin transforms monochromatic source images through color, pairing the women with detailed depictions of endangered flora and fauna. Her more recent mixed-media paintings bring the photographs themselves onto the canvas through a delicate image-transfer process. As the transferred images fragment, she responds intuitively with acrylic color, botanical forms, and abstract mark-making, allowing chance, loss, and discovery to shape the work. Across both approaches, Martin connects the changing roles of women with the vulnerability of the natural world, inviting reflection on impermanence and our responsibility to care for what remains.

Based in Carmel, California, Martin holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her oil portraits and mixed media paintings explore womanhood, nature, preservation, and the passage of time. Her work was selected for the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art’s 10th Annual National Juried Exhibition in 2026 and the Monterey Museum of Art’s 2025 Biennial. Her work has recently appeared in Studio Visit Magazine and New Visionary Magazine and her painting, Arrival, was reproduced as a public mural through Jackson Hole Public Art’s WildWalls project. Earlier in her career, Martin was named an Artist to Watch by Southwest Art, and her landscape paintings were the subject of an editorial feature in American Artist magazine. Her work is included in many corporate and private collections, most notably the State of Wyoming’s Capitol Art Collection.