Martha Evans speaks softly but delivers big, bold statements through her art. Her early works were in oil, but painting in oils on Bristol board on her small apartment’s dining room table quickly became cumbersome due to the odor and lack of space. Watercolors became her new medium and “after many disasters,” she developed a technique using brushes and sponges. Over time she expanded her work to include large panoramas created by backpacking up a mountain, settling into a lean-to by the lake, and beginning to draw. Holder of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, she currently works in many different sizes from small and ethereal to large and dramatic, such as "Chimney Pond," six panels measuring 12" x 96" unframed.
It’s important to Martha to create finished watercolors that have “a bit of magic.” To achieve that, she sometimes reworks her pieces. Even after years have passed, she may open up a framed and hanging artwork to add just a bit more magic. On very few occasions she will finish a watercolor on her first attempt and says it “feels wonderful!”
Martha’s watercolors showcase landscapes of Eastport, Acadia National Park, and Baxter State Park in Maine, as well as Newfoundland and scenes from outside Yellowstone National Park. They begin as drawings, on-site or from photographs, but through the process of many layers become more abstract. As she moves through the work, from realism to a more impressionistic final product, she often listens to violin and piano music, mainly Bach and Beethoven. Lately, “It is Beethoven Violin Sonatas, but the Bach Partitas are among my favorites.”
As an artist-member of the Eastport Gallery who shares her work in person during the summer months and online in the off-season, she feels like a true member of an artist community. In addition to Eastport, Martha’s work has been exhibited in shows in Boston and Lexington, Massachusetts, and Claremont and Grantham, New Hampshire. She has a one-person show in Grantham through February and will have another one there in September through November. With two beautiful studios, one in New Hampshire and one in Eastport, she has come a long way from shuffling her work around her dining room table. We are lucky to enjoy the beautiful vistas from around the world that she captures in watercolor wherever she paints.
