Martha Underriner ( she/her/hers )

My work is a monument to the unique and diverse experiences within the lives of women, specifically within their domestic spaces. My work considers the everyday experiences of women along with the complexities inherent in their lives such as emotional and domestic labor, caregiving roles, and the patriarchal structures that inform the expectations on women within the home. I explore the use of traditionally masculinized processes and materials intertwined with traditionally feminized materials to explore subversive ways in which women reclaim their spaces from patriarchal structures that so heavily influence their lives. This conversation is important to me because, particularly in the American South, many of the women I talk to still feel like they take on a significantly greater amount of domestic labor than their partners despite the progress that women have made over the years to equalize labor. By creating this work, I hope to help reframe the conversation and help the women sharing their stories to feel that their unseen labor and experiences are made visible and monumentalized through sculpture.

My most recent work, Never Done, is an installation that investigates and documents the unseen lives and labor of women within their domestic spaces, manifesting the invisible everyday work of women. Despite how much progress women in the US have made over the years to equalize labor; many women are still responsible for more of the household work and childcare than their partners. For Never Done, twelve women responded to my call on social media to draw a blueprint of their domestic spaces as well as a map of how they move and work around their homes. Never Done documents the movements of women within their domestic spaces and monumentalizes the unseen work of women through large, welded steel forms and hand-sewn embroideries based on maps submitted by a diverse group of women.

Martha Underriner is an artist and educator based in DeLand, FL. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Florida, a Master of Art Education degree from Texas Tech University, and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Texas. She has taught art at all levels for 14 years and has presented on her teaching methods at state and national conferences. Martha utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to her work using steel, ceramics, and glass. Her work has been exhibited nationally at exhibitions such as Materials Hard+Soft and the National San Angelo Ceramics Exhibition. Martha is currently the Associate Curator of Education at the Museum of Art – DeLand and also is an adjunct professor at Stetson University.