Martha Sando

Martha Sando Studio

Martha Sando is an abstract oil painter whose work is informed by decades of teaching, travel, and deep engagement with art history and visual culture.

She earned a comprehensive studio art degree from Illinois State University and later completed a Master of Arts in Teaching at Webster University in St. Louis. Her career began in art education, teaching high school and advanced painting while living and working in St. Louis, Charlottesville, and Indianapolis. Along the way, she taught at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, Park Tudor School, and North Central High School, and worked in medical art and photography at the University of Virginia Hospital.

In 2002, Sando was selected as one of six educators to participate in a Lilly China Exchange Partnership, an experience that allowed her to teach, travel, and immerse herself in Chinese art and culture. She later received a Lilly Creative Renewal Grant in 2007, traveling to Moscow and along the Volga River to St. Petersburg, where encounters with masterworks at the Pushkin, Tretyakov, and Hermitage museums profoundly shaped her artistic direction.

Inspired to move beyond the classroom, Sando began a full-time painting practice in 2010, focusing on abstract oil painting that reflects a lifetime of study, observation, and creative exploration.

Statement

I paint to communicate an emotional interplay of color, shape and space. Painting my idea is like walking the balance beam: spontaneous in my brushwork, yet in control of my design. My inspiration is the real world drawn through the prism of my imagination. I aim to create joy. Color is my messenger.