Sandra Gisela Martin is a German-born artist and anthropologist based in Utrecht. Her practice moves between painting, performance, and happenings, rooted in a fascination with how objects mediate human relationships — and how light, when held inside a surface, becomes something else entirely.

I know that what I see is never quite what is there. My eyes are not mirrors; they are stained glass.

My practice begins with the hunt for materials. I seek out discarded windows and old glass, drawn to the history held in their scratches and imperfections. On these reclaimed surfaces I paint luminous, often figurative forms — a dialogue between the material’s past and the new stories I bring to it. Through image and poetry, I aim to make the viewer feel what it means to give soul to something: to encounter the numinous, to sit with the sacred.

They say I dance the way I paint and I paint the way I dance. They are right — both the same prayer, a leaning into the beat of things, a surrender that is also a command, a way of pulling the invisible into form until the room itself begins to breathe with you.

I make things not because I have something to say, but because I need something to hold. Art is the handle I give myself.

When I’m not in the studio, I serve as Head of Community Engagement and interdisciplinary anthropologist of the Oceanographies Collective. I also host workshops and a regular art salon — spaces for shared creative exploration.

For questions about commissions, workshops, or collaboration, don’t hesitate to reach out.

I am not here to be understood.
I am here to be encountered.