Who I am

Kaelin Martin (they/them) is a Kingston-based interdisciplinary artist who sees art as both a mode of self expression and political praxis. Their career as an artist began in dance and over the years has expanded into installation, sculpture, printmaking, photography, sound art, and painting. They graduated from SUNY Purchase in 2024, where they studied political science and art. Kaelin has held two solo gallery exhibitions: Soliloquy and We’re Watching, as well as a public installation, Reflect, Repent, Repeat: What’s Left. They have been featured in gallery exhibitions throughout the Hudson Valley and New York Metropolitan Area including Center for Photography Woodstock’s Free, For All, My Need for Tender Love and Care at All Street Gallery in Manhattan, and Midtown Kingston Arts District’s Steamroller Print Fest. Kaelin’s work has also been featured in several art publications, including the Gandy Dancer, Show & Tell, Submission Magazine, and Italics Mine. Their art explores themes of the body and love, and posits a world of radical care outside of power.

Artist Statement

Hysteria escapes me through my art, giving shape to my madness and to me the grace of its release. My work comes from an embrace of process and fluidity. I am drawn to mediums that allow movement and a loss of control. I focus on abstraction and giving form to the visceral, over a worship of beauty.

My art practice inherently reflects and embodies my political work fighting against heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, fascism, and coloniality in all its forms. It is raw, loud, and messy, based in experimentation and the unexpected. I enjoy finding ways to use tools, techniques, and materials that are at odds with their proposed function, like painting using my eyelashes as my brush. I incorporate my love of learning into my work by always exploring new ways of making. My work queers traditional techniques across printmaking, photography, painting, sound, movement, and sculpture, by embracing mistakes. My work is an ode to my love of the imperfect. 

Teaching Artist
For most of my life, I did not see myself as an artist. As someone who struggled with realist drawing and perfectionism, I felt trapped by the emphasis put on it in many educational spaces. It was not until I let go of what I thought art was, and turned toward the beauty of process and creative expression, that I was able to create work that felt honest and meaningful to me. 
My teaching philosophy is rooted in cultivating confidence and the creativity innate to all of us. I am passionate about sharing techniques and tools that help empower students to be vulnerable, explore who they are, creatively express their thoughts and emotions, and imagine who they are on the path of becoming.