Born in Montreal Martha is a self-taught artist working out of her home studio in Ottawa, Ontario. Art has always been a passion spending countless hours drawing and sketching as a child. As an adult she started to explore mediums such as oil and acrylic paint and enrolled in several courses at the Ottawa School of Art.

She has enjoyed the freedom that painting gives her, the fluidity and expressiveness it offers, working with acrylics initially because they allowed her the ability to be spontaneous with color and texture. Color in fact is the most stimulating aspect of her work. It is the starting point for every painting. The way a variety of hues play off each other, and change as they relate to one another is what sets the tone for each painting.

Most recently she has been exporing oil as a medium and using it to record landscapes and big open skies. Although they are more representational than past work they are energetic and spontaneous. They evoke a mood, a feeling much like the early non objective work she was first known for.

“The medium decides what will happen and ultimately dictates the end result. The work is about colour, texture and movement. The viewer is then left to attach their own connection and emotion to the work from these elements.”

A picture that is beautiful, or that comes off, or that works, looks as if it was all made at one stroke……….

Helen Frankenthaler

….this is what I often think of when painting, there may be several strokes made to achieve the final product but I hope that it looks effortless and yet captures the mood I am trying to evoke…