Martie Holmer has been making art since she could hold a pencil. Her paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in galleries and museums in New England, New York, and  Rome. She has been the recipient of honors and awards, been a Fellow at MacDowell artist residence multiple times, and has an ongoing studio practice at her workplace in Long Island City, Queens. 

Calligraphic line work characterizes much of her work, be it in painting or in the sculptural forms she made in work of the 1980s and 90s. In earlier works it was seen in her drawings with marks which rely on the power of a line to transmit a feeling or gesture. In the 1980s she studied Chinese calligraphy with a master calligrapher, who was briefly in residence in Cambridge at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum; with this study her interest in line became even more pronounced. Sculptural works began as calligraphic gestures, but later were translated into wood and other materials, bringing along the feeling of the original black and white drawings and ink paintings. 

As a fine artist, Holmer has always been interested in the tension between the systems man has created to describe and understand phenomenon in the natural world, and the variations that are part of all natural and living things. It is this endless variation that has interested her, as well as the transient nature of most materials. Therefore, she has often made works only meant to last a short time, reusing parts of other works and celebrating the impermanence of work, thinking of those works as part of the process of memory and experience in time. 


Her interest in the temporal and gestures of line also stem from a love of music. Martie plays improvisational piano, having studied at the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Program, and with several jazz pianists in NYC. She also composes tunes.

Most of the work on this site has been exhibited in gallery settings. You may request a CV if desired, but I wish this to be primarily a visual experience; I'm always available for questions or inquiries. Updates to the site are ongoing.

~ Martie Holmer 2023