It’s these sort of everyday Genre scenes that make up most of Martin’s oeuvre and justify her self-given title of “painting anthropologist,” but she has a way of romanticizing the quotidian in a way that make these moments feel monumental. While men and still life images certainly find their fair share of the limelight in her work, many of her larger-than-life paintings feature another form found throughout art history – the nude female figure. “I’m doing what art has been doing forever,” Martin says with satisfaction, “though I’m able to have more real estate – when I say “real estate,” I mean, scope of joy and confidence in the way that I portray women – because I am a woman.”

A trip to AMERICA MARTIN’s expansive live/work space reveals a prolific young artist’s flourishing body of work.

“In life we are given a blank canvas of our own. The markings, the strokes, the hues vary depending on each of us. Our truth that lives idly within is freed when we give it a place to find liberation.”

America Martin’s new show explores the themes and subjects dear to the artist’s heart including reclining female nudes and musicians at work.

America Martin lives and breathes art. Painter, sculptor, photographer, printmaker and accomplished writer, when she is not making art, she reads about it and — with infectious joy-talks about it. It all started with a discarded book about Vincent Van Gogh, tossed among the wire hangers and outgrown roller skates at a neighborhood garage sale. With only a quarter to spend the teen settled on the book and fell in love.

If you live in this town, you've probably heard about the rising-star artist America Martin.