Artist Information

Name: Becky Martin
Medium: Painting
Style: Abstract, Contemporary

Artist State­ment:

I love to draw and paint! I real­ly enjoy new chal­lenges and embrace learn­ing new tech­niques. Present­ly, I am work­ing on sev­er­al com­mis­sioned paint­ings. I strive to make my buy­ers hap­py and want them to pur­chase more paint­ings form me in the future. My ultimate
hope is that the buy­ers enjoy the paint­ing in their home or office for the rest of their lives.

Biog­ra­phy:

B. Mar­tin thrives on cre­ativ­i­ty. She has stud­ied numer­ous art tech­niques and is espe­cial­ly fond of the ancient Japan­ese method of fish print­ing known as Gyotaku.

As a con­tem­po­rary abstract artist, she works pri­mar­i­ly with acrylics and foils on large-scale can­vas­es. Through her unique method of lay­er­ing, var­i­ous qual­i­ties of lumi­nous light, vivid col­or and ener­gy are unveiled. Unafraid of strong col­or she sub­merges emo­tion­al­ly into the paint­ing process. The final art­work brings ener­gy to the viewer.

B. Mar­tin is an East Texas-based artist that lives in the Tyler area. She earned a Bach­e­lor of Arts degree from The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin.

Artist Interview: Becky Martin

What are your ear­li­est mem­o­ries relat­ed to art?
My moth­er use to try keep me busy when I was very young. She would take a sheet of paper and draw row after row of cir­cles on it. It was my job to fill in each cir­cle with a face and hair. I have a few copies of those sheets in my art mem­o­ry box.

How and when did you start becom­ing an artist yourself?
I was a young artist and can remem­ber sit­ting at the East Texas Fair doing an art demon­stra­tion with pas­tels. I was in grade school…maybe fourth grade.

What was the evo­lu­tion like toward find­ing your cur­rent voice and visu­al vocabulary?
Acrylic paints were the cat­a­lyst that threw me into paint­ing. The col­ors and the quick dry­ing time were so dif­fer­ent than the smells and dry­ing time of oils.

What is your process like?
The Gyotaku process is very involved in the prepa­ra­tion of the fish. I often freeze the uncleaned fish and then when ready, thaw a bit, arrange the fins with a fix­a­tive, close up all of the body open­ings, cov­er the eye and then paint back to front with an ink. I print the fish on silk and mis­takes can be very pricey.

Is there any­thing from your artist state­ment that you wish to expound on, that you nor­mal­ly don’t have the chance to discuss?
I love to do every type of art I enjoy water­col­ors, oil, ink, acrylic …any or all and I love to embell­ish with gold leaf.

What do you try to con­trol in your sur­faces, and what do you leave to chance?
I often leave the back­ground some­what to chance, if the sub­ject is very detailed and total­ly grabs the eye.

Where do you see your work going from here?
I hope peo­ple trea­sure my art for­ev­er and that it lives on way beyond my years.