Mary Marshall Martin is a figurative painter based in Philadelphia. They have received a BA in studio art from Hollins University as well as attending programs like Yale Norfolk School of Art and Mount Gretna School of Art.

Their work explores transgender figures in transitionary spaces. Through this interaction of figure and space, the paintings are creating and portraying experiences of anxiety trans people feel in spaces of leisure. Whilst spaces of leisure typically are places of comfortability, they often evoke feelings of fear and deprivation within the exploration of one’s identity. Pools are spaces of relaxation for most, but for trans people, they are locations of vulnerability, evoking the theme of trans anatomical existentialism. The chosen locations for the pieces are disjointed and abstracted, with only visual suggestions of the space, rather than fully rendered representations. The figures themselves are loose depictions of self-portraiture, while representing aspects of the trans identity, they are also representing the artists identity as a transmasculine queer individual through queer objectivity.

Born Tarboro, NC, 2002