Mär Martinez is an artist specializing in sculptural painting. Equally sensual and severe, her work explores power dynamics. She is interested in how power is given, and how it is taken away. Figure, wire, form and fabric mirror and encircle one another, operating under tension.

Informed by her Cuban and Arab-American heritage - a parallel familial history of displacement - she references disruption by hand-cutting her painted forms with a saw to strip them from their context, rendering them exposed and vulnerable. The use of strategic lighting allows the sculptural paintings to cast massive shadows, manipulating perceived ideas of authority and ability to take up space.

Recently, she has been using the iconography of heirloom Turkish carpets brought by her mother’s family to America when fleeing Syria to explore the post-immigration experience. With the support of the 2024 – 2025 Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, she developed a body of work inspired by the tension, generativity, and power exchanges inherent within the hand-weaving process. She views the process of transforming single threads into an enduring carpet as a metaphor for the strength, survival, and resiliency.

Martinez is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Painting at Hunter College, NY. She received her B.F.A. in Painting and B.A. in Art History at the University of Central Florida. She is affiliated with the Sadberk Hanım Museum and Mirmar Sinan Fine Arts University. Upcoming 2026 solo exhibitions include: a loom, a fence, a wire, a thread at the Art & History Museums Maitland, FL.

Martinez has received multiple fellowships, grants and attended many residencies around the world. Her work has been acquired by public and private collections. She is currently supported by the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Martinez is represented by Bozlu Art, Istanbul.