Artist Bio

Annika Marthinuss is a Maryland-based artist. She creates artwork and spaces that consider inclusivity, community, and care, building awareness, acceptance, and advocacy of chronic pain and disability.

Artist Statement

I am an autistic and disabled artist who works with acrylic paint, textiles, collage, trash, plaster, and other media. I explore mental health, neurodivergence, disability, and chronic pain within my art and process. My work is a part of me, a self-portrait of sorts, though not always directly. I explore interiority and exteriority in emotions and persona. How a person looks on the outside is not always how they appear on the inside. I am also interested in masking and camouflage, and how parts of myself remain hidden. I like layering these hidden and exposed parts on top of each other through moments of collage and glazed layers of paint. I am interested in perception – how my view of myself differs from how others view me. Pain and limitations of my body and my disabilities affect how I am viewed within society. People in pain are often ignored, dismissed invisible, expected to justify their pain, especially if it is not physically visible. I’m not interested in giving information in spoken words, I want my language to be visual and written and quiet. I didn’t identify with the label “disabled” for a while, but then it became an explanation, an answer, an identity, a community. Finally knowing why I had the symptoms, the diagnoses and answers I keep getting, and finally understanding that my pain was never normal. And then allowing rest and healing.