Lest We Forget

Delita Martin – Bio

Biography

Delita Martin (b. 1972, Conroe, TX) is a master printer. She received her BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Formally a member of the fine arts faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Martin is currently working as a full- time artist in her studio.

Martin was among the eight African American artists featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition “The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined,” curated by Myrtis Bedolla of Galerie Myrtis. The exhibit explores the theme of Black life on the continuum of its imagined future presented in the Personal Structures art fair. Additionally, the Print Association Bentlage Residency Showcase, Kloster Bentlage, in Rheine, Germany, hosted “Gathering the Bones,” a solo exhibition featuring Martin’s work.

In 2021 filmmaker Ava DuVernay, ARRAY commissioned Martin to create “Blue is the Color We See Before We Die,” a mural that serves as a visual eulogy dedicated to Yvette Smith and other women who have tragically lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement officials. The mural is part of DuVernay’s Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP), a propulsive fund founded in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder to catalyze creative expression around police violence and accountability.

Martin’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and toured the country (2016-17) in the Crystal Bridges Museum exhibition, State of the Arts:Discovering American Art Now which included 101 artists from across the United States. In 2020, the National Museum of Women in the Arts hosted Martin’s first solo museum exhibition, “Delita Martin: Calling Down the Spirits,” which was reviewed in the Hyperallergic article “Images of Black Women as Avatars of Spiritual Agency” by cultural critic Angela Carroll.

In 2015 Martin was recognized in the International Review of African American Art as one of sixteen “African American Artists to Watch” who are gaining national and international recognition. Permanent Collections (selected): Bradbury Art Museum, C.N. Gorman Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, David Driskell Center, Library of Congress, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Petrucci Family Foundation, Thrivent Financial, William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, and the U.S. Embassy, Nouakchott, Mauritania.

Martin’s works are represented in numerous private and corporate collections in the United States and abroad.