About

Hi I’m Ruth Martin (artist)! (they/them)

I’m a Disabled, Queer, Non-Binary artist from Malvern, Worcestershire and I live in North West London with my cat Athena, who is my ultimate nap-buddy. My practice is an expansive investigation into the way I sit in the world, and what identities I hold. How my body feels, what it looks like, the unknown darkness of my internal organs and the fascination of blood and urine are things I draw upon frequently.  I am fascinated with the parts of me that hold wounds together or lets them fall open. I am always painting and creating, and selling my works through different mediums to make art accessible to a multiplicitous audience. 

A question I am confronted with in my work  is “where do I end and the world begins?”. This helps me to reflect on my interaction with the world, and my relationship with it and others. I am primarily a painter, but this is abstracted and moved to match my own limits. At university I painted canvases much bigger than myself, but smaller than my dreams. Now, I scribble, paint, embroider, crochet - any material I can use to communicate with from the confines of my bed. I am drawn to painting as a visceral expression of bodily fluids, and as a conduit for my pain as someone who lives with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses.

Viewers often find my work colourful, beautiful and demanding of space - which is a purposeful action. I dress in neons and have pink hair but inside my organs are decaying. I make large, neon paintings depicting my life with chronic illness. There is a direct link to the beauty and colour of my paintings, depicting deep disease, pain and suffering and the way I show my external body to the world. I bring hope into my paintings, the way my pink hair reminds me I’m still here, not just my disability.

I graduated University of Westminster with a 1:1 BA(hons) in Fine Art Mixed Media. My work has been included in multiple exhibitions, including ‘Continuum’, a student-led group exhibition, Harrow, 2021, Westminster Gallery Café Exhibition’, 2023, Regent Street, ‘Fine Art Mixed Media’, 2023, Ambika P3, Baker St. I was awarded the Gatehouse Chambers Art Programme in 2023, with my painting ‘5’, 2023, in residence of their offices.

‘5’, 2023, in residence at Gatehouse Chambers 23-24

Image from London Live News, April 24th 2023.

I have also worked with FORT: London for their 2023 Calendar. I also appeared on London Live News, in April of 2023 to discuss my work. I am featured in multiple articles as an alum of University of Westminster. 

Image from “Preparing for my Westminster Degree Show - Fine Art Mixed Media BA”, University of Westminster blog, August 2023. 

Thanks for being here, if you have any questions or interest please contact me through my contact page, or follow me on @ruthmartinartist on all platforms <3