Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristen Martinez.
Hi Kristen, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I built a creative career long before motherhood ever entered the picture. I still remember selling my first set of illustrations while I was in college at NC State—fashion sketches to my sister’s boss. It was the first time I realized that something I created could become the foundation of a business of my own.
That idea quickly grew. While still in college, I began assisting and volunteering with a local production team behind a fashion, art, music and performance show in downtown Raleigh. I was ultimately chosen as the only student fashion designer and, when the event partnered with Vitamin Water, was selected as their up-and-coming artist and visionary, helping shape the visual identity and experience of the event. That opportunity led to a job where I learned styling, event planning, procurement and the process of bringing a creative vision to life—from locations and staging to fashion and design.
My path wasn’t linear. I later worked in corporate recruiting, where I developed an entirely different understanding of the business side of work and what it takes behind the scenes to build something. Eventually, I left corporate life and went out on my own as an artist, taking on graphic design, production and creative clients while caring for my young nephew with the help of my dad.
From there, I took a position as a project manager for an interior designer, including collaborating on the design of my sister’s salon. It was there that I learned the intricacies of custom fabrication and how to build something entirely from scratch. After two years, my own art commissions had grown enough for me to go out on my own again. By 2020, I was taking on large-scale corporate art projects and creating so much work that my home studio had spilled into the dining room, living room, bathroom—anywhere I could find space. Eventually, I moved into an 1,100-square-foot studio that became both an exhibit space and my personal creative workspace. During COVID, I also found new ways to keep connecting via my creations, including producing art boxes that allowed people to create remotely or together.
Since becoming a mama in 2023, painting and writing have become my continued way to process grief, identity, motherhood and healing—to make sense of becoming someone new while remembering who I had been. That return grew into a new chapter in my career. This year, I launched my collection, FRAGMENTS, selling 27 original paintings within 24 hours. With a new collection of works and poems being released in Downtown Wilmington this Fall.
My story is not about having everything figured out; it is about rebuilding, trusting my voice and discovering that difficult seasons can become the foundation for something unexpected. Now, my work is about finding beauty in the fragments and believing that what feels unfinished can still become meaningful.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
it hasn’t been smooth in a traditional sense, I was under construction when I became pregnant with my daughter and thru a breach of contract paired with my own mental fatigue took my investment money back from a major gallery location, in hindsight it was definite discrimination for my current situation. But I believe everything happens for a reason. it allowed me the space and energy to become a mama without the stressors of running a five thousand sq ft gallery.For over three years, so much of my time and energy went into raising my daughter, while I was also, for the first time, allowing myself the space to truly process losing my father and passing of my brother.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I begin with writing poetry or journaling bigger sets of ideas. My artwork leans into in every sense of the word “expressionism”. As I view my works over the past 10 years there is a diversity in subject matter and tone, but my painterly and imperfect strokes are very strongly tied thru new and older works. Their emotional projections bend and sway as do the seasons of my life.
My practice does not set to create a “style” but instead tell a story. I specialize in portraiture, abstraction and developing original imagery for brands, clients and spaces. My interior design work begins in functionality and blooms via art, hand drawn custom furniture and fabrications.
I’m most proud of the continual struggle to create beyond self doubt. Since my work rarely begins with more than a feeling, vision or need. What we cannot see until literal creation, drives my day to day movement in pursuit of it.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
my mother has noted ” if I had a set of crayons” you wouldn’t hear from me for hours. I constantly was reading and journaling. Painting came later after major exploration of sculptures and miniatures. Personality wise I was energetic and talkative a major juxtaposition to how I created the work, much in solitude and rare collaboration.
Other interests were fashion, but there again it was much less about how and what I created but more so why it was made and what it served. I always felt like there were such strong lines between female and male clothing, with functionality and comfort all but getting lost in women’s dress. As an avid cyclist I spent much time creating pieces that worked well on and off the bike without looking “sporty”.
Pricing:
- 36″x24″ x 1.75″ “Moments of Beauty” $1495
- 16″x20″ velvet paper reproduction “In-Between” $250
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kristenmartinez.art
- Instagram: kristenmartinezart
- Other: martinezruppert
