My paintings function as a bridge between fantasy and emotional reality. They draw on western myth and self portraiture to embody universal states of loss, power, and longing under the shadow of climate grief. 

I gather color and texture from Oregon’s forests, coast, and farmlands. Working from memory I paint imagined self portraits informed by archetypal nature deities. These figures appear as death masks for both environmental and personal histories. I am from Southern Oregon where wildfires have changed and scarred the land. Through painting I meditate on the changes of self and landscape.

Each painting is built slowly, through indirect painting and removal. This allows the portraits to surface intuitively, as if excavated from a primordial memory.

Colete Martin (b. 1995) is an acrylic painter based in the US. Her work has been exhibited in New England and the Bay Area, and featured in publications including Booooooom! and the Manifest International Painting Annual. She lives on Sauvie Island with her partner and two cats.