Biography
British painter and mixed media artist Ruthie Martin is the Artist-in-Residence at the Railway Land Wildlife trust, Lewes, East Sussex. After studying Abstraction in Painting with Tricia Gillman at Central Saint Martins from September 2017 to June 2018, she studied for a BA degree in Fine Art from the University of East London, graduating in 2021 with First Class Honours. She was also awarded the Curriculum Art Prize from Kensington and Chelsea College, London in the same year.
Her work is inspired both by the landscape of the South Downs National Park and by considerations of the shifting relationships between human and more-than-human natural worlds. Her mainly abstract paintings spring from close observation of the forms, trails and textures of the local environment, embodying her physical experience of temperature and movement. Martin uses both dry and water-based media, including gouache and acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and water-soluble crayon. Her work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in London, Lewes, Brighton and Cambridge.
Statement
My work is grounded in a deep attentiveness to the liminal spaces where human perception and the voice of nature intertwine. I’m drawn to the thresholds -between seen and felt, memory and material, presence and absence - where wildness reveals itself, not as something distant or other, but as something we are always in relation with. Working en plein air, I begin in close sensory proximity to the landscape, allowing weather, light, sound and movement to guide my gestures. Through layers of spontaneous mark-marking and gestural brushwork, I seek to echo the vibrancy of natural forms - not to represent them, but to respond to their energy and complexity. What emerges is a dialogue between the landscape and the body, between outer terrain and inner sensation.
My paintings are not fixed depictions but atmospheric traces of encounter. They hold the ambiguity and fluidity of memory - how nature impresses itself upon us in fragments, textures and fleeting impressions. In the studio I work to preserve that immediacy, while deepening the surface through layering and drawing, allowing each piece to hold both clarity and blur, delicacy and force.
This practice is an ongoing act of listening - to what exists between forms, between knowing and unknowing. In this space of in-betweenness, I aim to open up a felt sense of connection: not as mastery over nature, but as participation with its unfolding presence.
Upcoming Community Art Workshops in East Sussex
Voices of the River: Weaving connections with the Ouse. At the Linklater Pavilion Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Lewes, East Sussex. 31st May 2025. In partnership with LoveOurOuse and The Tate Gallery.
Youth Art Trail Installation and workshops for Changing Chalk, East Sussex. On the South Downs at Butts Brow, Eastbourne, East Sussex. June-August 2025
Floating Forms workshop as part of Lewes Artwave 2025, at the Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Sunday 7th September 2025
Past Community Art Workshops in East Sussex
Echoes of the Stream A workshop about translating the voice of the Winterbourne Chalk Stream into visual art. Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, East Sussex. 2nd March 2025
https://loveourouse.org/winterbourne-chalk-stream-community-festival/
Upcoming Gallery Exhibition
Solo exhibition as part of Lewes Artwave 2025, at The Linklater Pavilion, Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Lewes, East Sussex. 13-14th September 2025
Past Gallery Exhibitions
Solo exhibition at The Linklater Pavilion, Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Lewes, East Sussex. June 2024
Group exhibition This is Elsewhere, Morley Gallery, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London. September 2023
Solo exhibition In the Kingdom of Daylight, The Blue Room Gallery, Lewes High Street Lewes, UK. August - September 2022
Group show Morley Gallery, 61 Westminster Bridge Road, London. September 2022
Group show Michaelhouse Café, Cambridge. June 2022
BA Fine Art Degree Show University of East London. Exhibition at Morley College, Chelsea. June 2021.
Wells Art Contemporary 2020 Wells Cathedral, Wells
Readymades Hortensia Gallery, Chelsea, London, November 2019. Paintings and wire sculpture.
Above the ballet school Hortensia Gallery, Chelsea, London, June 2019. Paintings and video.
Artwave Festival 2019 The Blue Room Gallery, Lewes High Street, Lewes, UK. August-September. Paintings and screen prints.
Artwave Festival 2017 House of Friendship Gallery, 208 Lewes High Street, Lewes, UK. August-September. Screen prints and photography.
Present and Connect: Contemporary Landscape Impressions Horsham Art Gallery, West Sussex. UK. November 2014 until January 2015. Screen prints and black and white photography.