Deborah Martin's Newest Series Continues to Illuminate the Uncanny in America's Outback

Walt Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” This theme manifests throughout the work of Deborah Martin, a contemporary realist landscape painter who conveys the essence inherent within marginalized communities that exist on the fringes of American society.

During much of his career, Whitman worked as a reporter. This experience proved formative to his development as a poet. Comprised of detached observations, rich with crisp imagery, Whitman’s poetry embraced a new style of writing that depicted modern America, marked by man’s imprint.

Before taking up painting, Deborah Martin looked to the camera as her primary vehicle for expression. Photography, which she continues to pursue, has lent her an uncanny capacity for documenting details that often go unnoticed. Likewise, photography has armed her with an unbiased eye. In the same vein as Whitman, Martin’s strength lies in her objective point of view, which she uses to expose what Peter Frank describes as the “unselfconscious attitudes of strange places where people have made themselves comfortable.”