About

Suzette Marie Martin is an American figurative artist whose work, rooted in drawing, is informed by observational studies and inquiry into environmental issues, with references to academic art traditions and 20th Century Expressionist mark making. Her current work combines the body language of distress, mythology, medical data and chemical notation to explore ecological grief and the emotional trauma of the pandemic. Martin’s Pandemic series pairs medical text and viral diagrams with isolated figures in gestures of grief and exhaustion, bearing witness to the emotional consequences of cumulative, collective loss experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her Anthropocene series explore ecological collapse through an ecofeminist perspective, using anachronistic female nature deities as proxies for the bio-systems they traditionally protected. Gestures of theatrical anguish embody anxieties triggered by the climate crisis, and subvert classical traditions of idealized female nudes in Arcadian settings. Molecular symbols reveal invisible toxins permeating 21st Century landscapes, and acknowledge the science behind environmental degradation. Altered colonial era maps reflect the cultural as well as environmental changes that began with European colonization of the New World. Previous series employed the body language of sleep and conflict to explore dynamics of intimacy and estrangement within domestic relationships.