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.
She is an interdisciplinary artist with a basis in books, words, painting, 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. What begins as a poem, may turn into an event, and then a painting; or a field recording, into a drawing, or a book.
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. She will release a limited-edition artist book of poetry and drawings, Turn, in Fall 2024. 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. 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, and more. Alyssa is program director for WILD YAMS Black Mother Artist Residency. She is a member of Expression Graphics Studio in Oak Park, the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, and the Illinois Mycological Society.
In addition to her creative practice, Alyssa is an arts administrator. She most notably helps produce Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival, and is development coordinator for Constellation Performing Arts. She previously worked as production and development coordinator for three time Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet.
To collaborate with, commission, or hire Alyssa, you can contact her at amartinezarts at gmail dot com
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