about martha marshall

Martha Marshall grew up in north Alabama. From the time she was a small child, Marshall’s mother, Jewell Miller Brooks, a landscape painter and teacher, nurtured the love of painting in both her daughters. As often as possible, the three spent their days outdoors, painting and sketching the open stretches of the rural Southern landscape.

Marshall received an Associate in Arts Degree from Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, in 1991, and acquired master printer skills during her studies there. She has attended numerous national workshops in printmaking, collage, and painting. After spending several years in a successful marketing career, Marshall now paints full time from her studio near Tampa, Florida.

Her work has been featured in numerous gallery shows from Washington DC to southern most tip of Florida. In 2003, one of Marshall’s paintings was chosen for use in the motion picture “The Punisher,” filmed in the Tampa Bay area and released in 2004. Marshall’s works can be found in many major collections, both private and corporate, throughout the United States and abroad.

artist statement

My current work is heavily layered and textured and invites the viewer to engage with it for its tactile as well as its visual qualities. Each piece is built up and torn down by the application of many layers of paint, gels, and textural and collage elements, then scraped, sanded, and scrubbed, then built up again, until a surface is arrived at that pleases me. It is at that precise point that I destroy the pleasing surface and begin again. I don’t want it to be too beautiful. I want to take it dangerously beyond repair, work again toward perfection, and then stop just in time.