DELITA MARTIN (b. 1972, Conroe, TX) is a master printer. Martin’s work explores the beauty and complexity of spiritual identities of African American Women. Through her mixed-media printmaking practice, which includes the layering of various printmaking processes, drawing, painting, collaging, and hand-stitching, Martin celebrates her sitters’ strength and resilience in a world that often overlooks or devalues them. Through her use of pattern, texture, and color, she creates immersive veilscapes that are deeply personal yet accessible to viewers. Her distinctive style combines elements of realism, abstractions, and symbolism, creating bold portraits of Black women. Martin received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas and MFA in printmaking from Purdue University, Indiana. 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 in Huffman, Texas.
In 2021 Martin was commissioned to create Blue is the Color We See Before We Die, a mural that serves as a visual eulogy dedicated to women who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement officials. The mural is part of filmmaker Ava 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 work has been published in International Review of African American Art, Hyperallergic, and Glasstire, among others.
Select national and international exhibitions include National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas; the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined (curated by Myrtis Bedolla of Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore, Maryland, who represents Martin), Italy; Print Association Bentlage Residency Showcase, Kloster Bentlage, Rheine, Germany. Permanent collections include: Bradbury Art Museum, Arkansas; Gorman Museum, California; Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas; David Driskell Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Minnesota Museum of American Art; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Petrucci Family Foundation, New Jersey; William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, Arkansas; U.S. Embassy, Nouakchott, Mauritania. Martin’s work was included in McClain Gallery’s group exhibition Strangeness, Tone, Translucency in 2024.