About the artist

Desiree Martinez is a self-taught artist born in Distrito Federal, Mexico, and raised in Toronto. Working primarily with paint and clay, she explores the beauty of imperfection and the emotional connections between body, mind, and memory.

Her creative journey began as a form of healing after a series of childhood experiences that left both emotional and physical marks. Through years of exploration, Desiree developed a deep connection to painting what makes us human — our fears, relationships, growth, motherhood, and the quiet moments that shape us as life unfolds.

Balancing her practice with full-time motherhood, Desiree draws inspiration from lived experience and emotional transformation. Her work spans painting and hand-built ceramic forms, each exploring human, body-like shapes and organic movement. Using earthy tones in acrylic and oil on paper and canvas, alongside sculptural pottery pieces, her work becomes an intimate reflection of vulnerability, resilience, and becoming.

Her work has been featured in exhibitions such as Artist Project and DesignTO, where she continues to share her evolving perspective and emotionally driven narratives with a wider audience.

Through her work, Desiree invites viewers to sit with emotion — not to fix it, but to feel it.

Artist Statement

I create contemporary paintings and ceramics that explore emotional intimacy, motherhood, memory, and human vulnerability through simplified figurative forms and earthy symbolism.

Working between abstraction and figuration, I intentionally distort and fragment the human body to reflect the quiet tension between strength and fragility. My practice began as a search for freedom from perfection, allowing the body to exist as expressive, imperfect, and emotionally honest.

Rooted in ancestral memory and my Mexican heritage, I am drawn to earthy palettes that feel instinctive and deeply physical. My colors emerge through intuitive mark-making, mirroring internal emotional landscapes and lived experiences.

My work often centers on relationships, solitude, and the invisible emotional moments that shape who we become. Through both canvas and clay, I create spaces where vulnerability, memory, and emotional resilience can be felt rather than explained.