Like many artists and creatives, I am an introvert. I look to solitude to refresh and reinvigorate, to provide a quiet base of support that allows me to paint with strength and abandon. As the years pass, I find myself embracing my inner introvert. So it is perhaps not surprising that my paintings reflect the need for a world without conflict, a world at peace.

There are those that postulate there will never be true peace on this planet as long as human beings exist. In some ways I have taken this idea to heart in my artwork.

Newly graduated from RISD in 1976, I painted figuratively. Portraits and individuals in real and surreal landscapes made up the bulk of my painting for years. But a funny thing happened about three decades ago – people disappeared from my paintings altogether.

Instead I began to focus on the natural plant world. Not man’s version of nature confined to a specific place with neatly trimmed and chem-sprayed lawns, but a powerful force that cannot be contained. I fantasized about what the world might look like without humankind's involvement – no rectangular concrete buildings, city grids or asphalt ribbon highways. I created a world where nature is an untamed tapestry, a planet where no human treads – a planet strong, wild and at peace.

I am not so naive to believe nature is perfectly peaceful. Plants compete for space and resources as we humans do. But I am human and everyday I see examples of how we have failed our world. I’d like to give nature a chance to do better.

I have talent and tools. I have an affinity for color, seeing and painting colors that most people can’t discern. I use space and line, movement and rhythm, and any tool at my disposal to get my point across.

I started to paint bigger, both in the scale of my actual paintings and the size of the plant life itself. I want the viewer to understand the life force that plants and trees contain. There are redwoods that are quite literally as high as a football field is wide. There are bristlecone pine trees that are 5000 years old. There is power in the tiniest of plants and the tallest trees.

I seek to portray that power by painting nature, not as we see it, but as it might see itself – intertwined, co-dependent and woven into a single living indomitable organism.

- PAULA MARTIESIAN

With a fifty-year plus career as an artist, Paula Martiesian has been painting her entire adult life. A native Rhode Islander, she attended RISD both as a child and later as an adult, graduating with a degree in painting in 1976.

The former exhibitions curator for the BankRI Galleries, Martiesian is one of the founding members of Gallery Night Providence. She was the editor and co-publisher of Quix Art Magazine (1991-1998), a quarterly publication focusing on the cultural scene in Rhode Island. She is a strong advocate for the visual arts in Rhode Island and has earned awards for her work from Business Volunteers for the Arts and WaterFire Providence.

Her paintings have been featured in regional galleries and museums and can be found in public and private collections throughout the country.