Martine Kasmin has been an artist for as long as she can remember. From a young age she knew that making art was key to her happiness. Growing up just outside Manhattan, she would often compel her parents to take her to New York City museums and galleries to see the work of her favorite artists up close. Ms. Kasmin went on to study at The School of Visual Arts in New York City on a full tuition merit scholarship. While at SVA she immediately felt an affinity with Abstract Expressionism and began to paint intuitively, letting her emotions and subconscious thoughts guide her work.

For a time, Ms. Kasmin needed to put much of her energy into other things, being a mother to twins and a teacher of students with special needs. But, while teaching and motherhood were profoundly gratifying, she was always called back painting. During the pandemic, Martine found herself with the greatest commodity of all, time. She used this time to refocus her life and to get back into her studio. Since that time, Martine’s work has been chosen for numerous juried shows in the tri-state area as well as a solo exhibition in Montclair, NJ in the fall of 2025.

Ms. Kasmin currently lives and maintains a studio in Northern New Jersey.

Statement:

Five years ago, I resurfaced as an artist. With goals that are meaningful to me. After many years of being absent, art was back in my life. I found my way back abstraction, to working intuitively. When I am painting, I am thinking about making unique marks and about the way colors react to other colors, textures to textures, lines to lines. I use my memories and emotional responses to being a mother, a friend, and to nature to create exciting shapes, color relationships and linear qualities that react and respond beautifully and powerfully to each other.

My paintings are primarily abstract because abstract art requires the viewer to spend time with it, to interpret it. As an artist, I want to invite the viewer to spend time with my paintings to decipher and unravel the forms that they see. I am passionate about bringing images to their fruition through a magical alchemy that occurs when putting paint on canvas.

Resurfacing, “to appear again after being lost or absent.” My work is a celebration of this concept, to doing what you are most passionate about. My current work is informed by 21 st century painters and those from many years ago.

The range of my influences extends from El Greco’s powerful skies to DeKooning’s beautiful abstractions. I’m also drawn to Rita Ackermann’s exquisite lines and Cecily Brown’s sensuous figures and use of light. I am constantly looking to art history to grow the emotional and technical depth of my work.

martinekasminart.com
@mkasminart