Martha Lewis is a visual artist, curator, educator and radio presenter who has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her artistic practice focuses on drawing, Site-Specific Installation, books, knowledge, and the history of science.
During the COVID 19 Pandemic Martha has been occupying herself with QuantumCineGram a nightly projection from her kitchen window out on to the street conveying a message about the day, the moment and making art while Self-Isolating. The project may be followed by going to @QuarantineCineGram on Instagram. Martha gives a short nightly video tour of the day’s message at 8 pm on the Instagram story of @Elycenterofcontemporaryart and the project is being worked into a print edition.
Martha is currently collaborating with artist Marion Belanger on Roots & Wings, a permanent artwork commissioned by the State of Connecticut for the Jenkins-Waggoner Laboratory at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. The project uses the Ag Station’s historic archive and combines photography, specimens and historic objects to create a multi-media environment in the Lab’s public areas.
Martha is the resident curator at The Institute Library in New Haven, where she organizes contemporary art exhibitions relating to words, books, archives or collections.
For the 2017/2018 academic year, Martha was Artist-in-Residence at The Yale Quantum Institute which culminated with an art installation as a part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. More about that here, here and here.
Martha’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, The Tricycle Gallery and The Oxford University Botanical Gardens in the UK., and in the USA at The DeCordova Museum, Central Booking Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Planthouse Gallery, RealArtWays and The Tides Institute and Museum, to name a few.
She is included in the collections of Nuffield College, Oxford, The Boston Public Library, Boston, Ma., and Chapman University, Orange, Ca. as well as in private collections in the U.S.A and Europe. A selection of her works on paper is available at The Flatfile at Pierogi, and at Planthouse Gallery in New York.
In addition to her studio practice, Martha currently hosts two radio shows–Live Culture-now in its 4th year, a monthly discussion on art and culture, which are also available as podcasts here, and The Flux Capacitor a music program, both on WPKN FM, where she is currently Director of Press and Publicity. There are Facebook pages for both The Flux Capacitor and Live Culture.
Various other past curatorial projects have included: Vertical Reach -co-curated with Sarah Fritchey, with the support of Culture PL), CT (UN) Bound (in collaboration with the Yale University Art Gallery), Fetish Objects, Instructions Not Included, Agit-Crop, Shiny Pop, and SCRAWL, all for Artspace, New Haven. Additionally, she has put together the shows Yarn Theory and Domestic Violence/ The Facts Are In, with director Susan Schriber, at PS. 122 Gallery in New York.
Martha has taught various studio art courses at The Art Students League in New York, Choate-Rosemary Hall, Columbia University, and through The College Seminar Program at Yale University, as well as giving numerous art-related workshops and presentations in a variety of venues.
She holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.