Marta Thoma Hall is an American painter and sculptor working in Alameda, CA, and Anahola, Kauai. She has a long career as an experimental artist, with her work featured in international exhibitions and numerous public art installations nationwide.
Marta Thoma Hall (MTH) studied Fine Arts at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. At UC Berkeley, she was taught by notable figures such as Elmer Bischoff, who instructed her to draw with her eyes closed; Paolo Carosone, a visiting Italian professor; and Malachiah Montoya, a Latino activist. These early influences sparked her interest in social justice, feminism, and surreal art. Her work was included in the 1980 exhibition "Fantasies and Visions," curated by Costa Rican artist Rolando Castellon at SFMOMA. In 1993, an Artist in Residency at Norcal led her to begin working with recycled materials.
Today, MTH is represented by the Anglim Trimble Gallery in San Francisco and the Wonzimer Gallery in Los Angeles. Her recent exhibition, "to see with eyes closed," showcased art made from a variety of materials, including 3D-printed resin, driftwood, tree stumps, fur, yarn, and shells. By using these unconventional materials, she creates work that breaks with convention, offering unexpected texture, color, and composition.
In addition to her career as an artist, MTH is a lifelong art collector. Her collection began to grow rapidly in 2021, and in 2022, she founded the Floating Art Museum in Alameda, CA, a testament to her dedication to the broader art community.