Delita

Delita Martin employs painting, printmaking, drawing and sewing to create vibrant portraits of African American women. Combining portraiture with layers of color and pattern, as well as images of everyday objects, Martin aims to create a visual language celebrating the lives and communities of women that have historically been marginalized. “Delita” is a self-portrait from “Keepsakes,” a suite of prints Martin created at Highpoint Editions. The series features hand-drawn lithographs of herself and her sisters, cousins and friends, as children. In each print a christening dress, printed as a collagraph, veils the young girl’s face. Geometric or floral patterns printed across the sheet in pale colors are augmented with embroidery thread, hand-stitched into the paper by the artist and a community of local quilters in Huffman, Texas. In this series, Martin focuses on individual identify and the meaning people bring to the objects, colors and patterns she weaves into their portraits.