A.Martinez is an interdisciplinary visual artist, poet, mother, and facilitator living in Chicago. Her work explores ritual, grief, ecology, and motherhood in a practice of noticing, learning, and remembering. Rooted in everyday language, occurrences, and images, Alyssa documents the important stories we carry. Her process involves foraging, nature walks, field recordings, historical research, in a social practice involving conversations, collaborations, and gatherings in community. The resulting work is an opportunity to learn more about each other, our history, and the natural and cultural world around us, building relationships with the people and ancestors within our communities and other relatives be they lichens, trees, or objects such as buildings.
Alyssa received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Writing Program in 2009 and has been published in LVNG Magazine, Contratiempo, Poiesis and self-released a handbound limited-edition artist book of poetry and prints, TURN, in May 2025. A.Martinez is a proud recipient of the 2019 3Arts Make a Wave Award, Chicago Artist Coalition's 2021 SPARK grant, and was a 2022 Threewalls In-Session Fellow. She has exhibited at Chicago Cultural Center, Carlson Tower Gallery, and OH Arts Foundation.
She is an interdisciplinary artist with a basis in books, words, painting, sound and object installation, and gatherings—for her it’s essential to let her ideas develop and dictate the form which they become, and her themes often have multiple forms over their lifetime.
Her social practice involves participatory community gatherings that prioritize collective and generative knowledge sharing and she has facilitated events with the Museum of Contemporary Arts Chicago, Arts & Public Life, Threewalls, Comfort Station, Mercy Garden of Peace and Healing, and the Sound & Environment Symposium at Newcastle University (UK). Alyssa is Program Director for WILD YAMS Black Mother Artist Residency. She has curated shows for the Chicago Cultural Center and Co-Prosperity and was 2025 Curatorial Forum Research Fellow for Independent Curators International. She is a member of Expression Graphics Studio in Oak Park, Spudnik Press, the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, and the Illinois Mycological Society.
In addition to her creative practice, Alyssa is an arts (artist) administrator and creative producer. She most notably helped produce Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival from 2016 until its end in 2024, and now produces the new Sound & Gravity Festival She is development coordinator for Constellation Performing Arts and previously worked as Production and Development Coordinator for three time Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet and is now Booking Associate for Grammy award winning percussion ensemble, Third Coast Percussion.
To collaborate with, commission, or hire Alyssa, you can contact her at amartinezarts at gmail dot com
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