Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Martha Bone attended Syracuse University where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors in painting and illustration. In 2018, she received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Manhattan and works in the South Bronx.
Bone has always drawn inspiration from the time-based arts. With an early involvement in experimental theatre, she performed with The Living Theatre in “The Archeology of Sleep”, at Brooklyn Academy of Music, studied dance at The Martha Graham School, performance/movement with Meredith Monk, and performed with Kirk Nurock and The Natural Sound Workshop. Seminal shows and performances were at Alan Stone Gallery, The Kitchen, St Marks in the Bowery Church, and Cubiculo, NYC. The usual career trajectory was
interrupted by a short summer rest in an upstate New York ashram that turned into nine years of study, meditation, and hard work. It totally transformed her life. Interested in consciousness and transformation, Bone’s process-based art investigates the metaphysical, using the body as the cosmic repository of all things. Biomorphic forms, made with materials as varied as nylon stockings, cable ties, heater hose, steel bolts, and dirt, give form to the primal darkness of the unknown. The archeological remains of the ancient cultures of India, Morocco, Nepal, and Turkey are a portal in accessing the cycles of karma, a recurring theme in her work.