BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present a free online talk by artist Delita Martin about her installation “Between Worlds,” on view in the large window bays extending across the front of BMAC's Union Station building.
The talk will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 7:30 p.m. Register at brattleboromuseum.org.
Through her work, Martin reimagines the roles of Black women in the context of collective Black culture and African history. She reconstructs Black women's identities by piecing together the signs, symbols, and language found in what could be called everyday life, from slavery through modern times.
Martin says her goal is to use images as a visual language to tell the stories of women who have often been marginalized, offering a different perspective of the lives of Black women. She describes her work as creating a “holding” space where language and identity intersect.
“Presenting the work of Black artists is an important priority for BMAC,” Director Danny Lichtenfeld said in a news release, “and we are thrilled to showcase Martin's work in our public-facing front windows.”
Martin's artistic process involves layering various printmaking, drawing, sewing, collaging, and painting techniques. The digital reproductions of her original mixed-media work will remain on view through May 2022.
Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in numerous collections. Most recently, her work was included in “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now,” a cross-country exhibition that included 101 artists from around the United States.
She received a B.F.A. in drawing from Texas Southern University and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Purdue University.
A former member of the fine arts faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, she works in Huffman, Texas, in her studio, Black Box Press.
In the coming year, the museum will offer public programs that will be funded by the Vermont Humanities Council. The offerings feature artists and curators who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color and who “use archival and historic materials to draw connections between the past and present,” Lichtenfeld said.