Contemporary American artist Delita Martin was born in Conroe, Texas. In addition to the familial influences of her father (a carpenter and painter) and grandmother (a quilter), Martin also cites American artist Elizabeth Catlett as an important source of inspiration for her work.

Martin infuses her portraits of Black Americans, especially women, with a mystical dimension. Describing herself as a “conduit or vessel,” she seeks to make visible her subjects’ ancestral and spiritual connections by layering her high-relief prints with symbols rendered in hand-stitching, paint, drawing, and collage. This liminal realm between the physical and spiritual is suggested by a layer that she calls a “veilscape.”

Martin received a BFA in drawing in 2002 from Texas Southern University and an MFA in printmaking from Purdue in 2009. From 2008 to 2012, she served on the arts faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In 2008, Martin founded Black Box Press Studio, a print studio and fellowship program that she operates outside of Houston.

Martin has held residencies including the Print Association Bentlage Residency, Kloster Bentlage, Rheine, Germany (2019 and 2022). Her art has been featured in solo and group exhibitions including Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined, Personal Structures: Time, Space, and Existence at the 2022 Venice Biennale.