Mandy Martin who first emerged as a political activist printmaker and painter, was born in Adelaide in 1952 and studied at the South Australian School of Art from 1972 to 1975.
Shortly after graduation she moved to Canberra with her first husband, the artist Robert Boynes, where she taught the Canberra School of Art at the Australian National University from 1978 until 2003. She later relocated to central west rural New South Wales. Her contribution to the university was so valued that on her departure she was appointed a Fellow of the University until 2008 when she became Adjunct Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, a position she held until 2018.
The new appointment reflected the change in the focus of her art as she moved from a tough critique of how women, especially lowly paid women workers, were treated to an awareness of the fragile environment and the damage being wrought by climate change.
Many of her large-scale paintings served as a critique of the degradation of the land in both rural and urban Australia. Red Ochre Grove, which shows the fragility of the land, was commissioned for the main committee room at the Australian Parliament House.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2021
