Photo by Howard LeVant
Bio
Martha Knox is a teaching artist, specializing in woodcuts and ceramics. She is the recipient of fellowships from prominent institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Print Center, and the Community Arts Center in Wallingford. Her work has been exhibited in the Delaware Art Museum, Sandy Spring Museum, and Philadelphia City Hall. As a teaching artist with organizations such as Wagner Free Institute of Science and the Mural Arts Program, she has designed highly engaging arts curriculum and has worked with hundreds of students of all ages. Through her independent press Words On Woodcuts she publishes books and calendars featuring her artwork. She has prints in the permanent collection of several libraries, universities, and arts centers. Knox holds a Masters in Fine Arts degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and maintains a studio in Philadelphia.
Statement
My woodcuts and hand built ceramics respond to what I observe around me, such as children, their weird and wonderful toys, gardens and parks, collections of taxidermy, fossils, and other specimens found in museums and books, and a diverse plethora of imagery found on Internet social media. My works explore stories and feelings as much as ideas. A single image might suggest symbolic narrative while simultaneously integrating naturalistic representation with formal abstraction. I am particularly interested in how the medium of wood block printmaking, with its long and varied history, can be used to engage with contemporary topics.