When you have an open floor plan, large-scale artwork like this one by America Martin can serve as an important focal point or a visual destination to define a space. While visual destinations are important, successful interiors should feel harmonious and have a natural flow from room to room. We like to create continuity by repeating materials and shapes throughout the home. Here, the curved shape of the metal on the chandelier in the dining room is repeated in the ceiling fixtures leading down the hallway.

A massive, commissioned mural from painter America Martin, titled “James’ Flowers,” hangs in the main dining room.

America Martin featured on the cover of interior designer Melanie Turner’s first book

Inviting Interiors: A Fresh Take on Beautiful Rooms Hardcover – March 2, 2021

by Melanie Turner (Author), Mali Azima (Photographer)

The first book from Atlanta interior designer Melanie Turner, whose pretty work has a modern edge.

Enthusiastic collectors, the Oudts own an array of ceramics (including pieces by Brenda Holzke and Simone Bodmer-Turner), paintings by artists such as José-María Cundin and America Martin, and a few sculptures, notably John Riepenhoff’s easel with human legs that playfully greets visitors in the entry. They even installed a video work by Gregory Scott that was purchased in New Orleans at the Arthur Roger Gallery in the dining room’s bar, where walnut paneling and cabinetry frames an eye-catching backsplash of glossy black Moroccan tile.

Emphasizing narration and the tales that emerge through gesture and contour, America Martin’s compositions always conjure a captivating story.

America Martin : Timeless NOVEMBER 2020 at the J. Willott Gallery

One of the room’s most striking pieces is a painting by America Martin; placed against windows, a moss backing gives it an organic feel when viewed from the outside. The open, inviting atmosphere extends to the adjoining breakfast room, which offers a sophisticated spot to dine amid contemporary furniture and art. Well-suited for leisure and hospitality, the two rooms are “easy on the eyes,” says Turner. –Jennifer Boles

America’s embrace of the influence of art history acknowledges a wide range of artistic influence, including that of Matisse, Picasso, Leger and Chagall, but in emotional reach and painterly vocabulary are very much rooted in contemporary life. One cannot help but recognize the way she rapidly sets herself apart from her peers and propels beauty, vulnerability, refinement and poetry into our world with astonishing precision and force.

Taking inspiration from Mid-Century Modernist masters, America’s distinctive style is underscored by the use of boldly brushed lines and punctuated bursts of color to imply tone and mood. She treats her subjects with an obvious reverence, and in a manner that captures their individuality and their dignity.

above: The dining room becomes an intimate cove beside the grandeur of the entry’s stairway. Yet it gathers its own gravitas from the limestone-tiled wall that flows from the entry. The homeowner’s equestrian passion is seen in a bronze equine sculpture set between Holly Hunt’s bronze “Bell Pepper” lamps. Women on Beach by artist America Martin provides an artistic focal point