Darrin Martin
Co-Chair, Department of Art and Art History
Professor of Art
Darrin Martin is an artist and educator. Through video, sculpture, and print-based installations, his works engage the synesthetic qualities of perception. Concerned with what is gained and lost in the process of translation as mediated by both old and new technologies and influenced by his own experiences with hearing loss, his current projects consider notions of accessibility through the use of tactility, sonic analogies, and audio descriptions. His videos have screened internationally at festivals and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY); Pacific Film Archive (CA), Impakt Festival (Netherlands), and European Media Art Festival (Germany). His installations have exhibited at venues including The Kitchen (NY), University of Toronto (Canada), and Grand Central Art Center (CA). In 2015, he held solo exhibitions at Aggregate Space Gallery (CA), Art Space on Main (CA), and Art & Design Gallery (KS).
Martin frequently collaborates with artist Torsten Zenas Burns, building diverse speculative fictions around re-imagined educational practices. Their works have been included in screenings and exhibitions in venues including The Oberhausen Short Film Festival, The Paris/Berlin International, Eyebeam, and Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn. They recently mounted an exhibition titled “ARK3: The Workshop Scenarios” at the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University in Alfred, NY that was re-imagined and augmented last summer at Krowswork Gallery in Oakland, CA.
Martin received his art degrees with an emphasis on video and sculpture from Alfred University’s School of Art and Design (BFA) and University of California, San Diego (MFA). He has held artist residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts, Eyebeam, Experimental Television Center, and Signal Culture. Martin also occasionally curates video screenings, most recently, an exhibition of works by 18 artists for Vanity Projects in New York City and Parsons Hall Project Space in Holyoke, MA, titled “Tooth and Nail.”
