LYDIA MARTIN
“I want to capture something extraordinary in the ordinary,” states contemporary realist painter, Lydia Martin, who creates technically detailed oil paintings that depict everyday subject matter of interiors, landscapes, cityscapes, figures, portraits, Trompe l’oeil and still-life. The Artist’s preferred medium is oil, though is equally at home with watercolor, acrylic, and pastel. Lydia was invited to work with renowned Painter, Odd Nerdrum, at his Art Atelier, Memorosa in Stavern, Norway. She attended the Massachusetts College of Art (studied with Janet Monafo) and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (studied with Sidney Goodman and Will Barnet) as well as attended West Chester University, PA.
From coast to coast through out America, Lydia’s works have been included in juried and invitational exhibitions receiving awards in oil painting and pastel. These include Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum Arts Center, Boston’s Chase Gallery and Lyman-Eyer Gallery, the Milton Art Museum, Cohasset’s South Shore Art Center, Chatham Center for the Arts, Attleboro Museum, the Whistler House Museum of Art, Providence’s Chabot Gallery, Bennington Center for the Arts, Arnot Art Museum, NY SoHo’s Broome Street Gallery, University Art Gallery at NYU/Stony Brook, the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Arts Club, New York National Arts Club, the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, San Francisco’s Powell Street Gallery, and the Pennsylvania Academy’s American Museum of Art. Internationally, the artist’s works are included within private and public collections in Italy: Rome, Venice, Padua; the Netherlands: Amsterdam and Stavern, Norway.
A Professor Emeritus of Studio Arts at Suffolk University, Boston, for 30 years, Lydia Martin taught classes within the Fine Arts, Interior Design and in the Foundation Art & Design Department: Foundation Drawing 1&2, Foundation Painting, Intro to Painting and Drawing for non-Art majors, Pictorial Space & 20th Century Art movements, Perspective & Architectural rendering, Mural and Trompe l'oeil Painting techniques, Printmaking and Paper making. She had received Suffolk University's Outstanding Art & Design Faculty of the Year Leadership Award. Lydia Martin was also granted the prestigious Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Faculty Fellowship to study in Paris, France and was included in the Art Career Project’s: “15 Notable Art Professors in Boston.” The Artist held a solo show, “Lotería” at the James McNeill Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, MA. To over 125 visitors attending her exhibition's opening reception, the Artist talked about her creative process in the oil painting techniques of contemporary realism as well as lectured on the history of the Latin American/ Mexican game of chance, Lotería:
“My ongoing painting series entitled,’Lotería’ was inspired by and organized around the traditional images associated with the popular Latin American/ Mexican game of fortune, Lotería: a version of bingo which utilizes pictorial cards instead of letters and numbers. I invited my colleague, artist, Kseniya Galper, to hand create an original sequence of corresponding Lotería cards that would serve as labels to each of my paintings. Using the game’s stock images as my focus, I work across genres—such as figure painting: (“La Sirena,” “La Dama”, “La Mano,” “El Musico,” “El Soldado,” “Las Arras”); interior: (“La Bota,” “El Sol,” “La Luna”), exterior/ cityscape/ landscape: (“El Borracho,” “El Arbol”) and still life: (“La Botella,” “La Estrella,” “La Maceta,” “El Diablito, ” “Lotería”)—to offer fresh interpretations of the concepts that stand behind the game’s rich folkloric history. In so doing, I aim to reconnect in distinctive ways with these everyday personalities, locales, and objects that quietly lend the game its broad cultural appeal and significance.”
*Visit Lydia Martin’s web sites at:
www.lydia-martin-studio.weebly.com
www.artelibre.net/autor/lydia-martin- Galeria Artelibre's website based in Zaragosa, Spain.
www.sugarlift.com/artist/lydia-martin- Sugarlift online gallery, New York City, NY.

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