Martha Rea Baker is a painter and working primarily in encaustic (melted beeswax fused with heat), oil/cold wax and acrylic. She enjoys combining materials, texture, shape and line in her thought-provoking mixed media paintings. Baker’s contemporary abstractions are inspired by nature, poetry, music and observation. Through layers of meaning, paint, wax or ink, she weaves a rich tapestry of life——past, present and future.

Born in Corsicana, Texas, Baker spent her formative years in  Clinton, Mississippi and attended the University of Mississippi from 1962-1964.  After receiving her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Santa Barbara, she returned to her native Texas where she and her husband raised three sons while living  in the Dallas area for forty years. Baker co-owned Gallery VIII in Plano, Texas for twenty-one years before relocating with her husband  to Santa Fe in December of 2006.

Baker studied art at the University of Dallas and drawing and printmaking at Collin College, Plano TX, as well as art foreign studies in Greece, Italy, Russia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, France and Spain. Her work has been published in Southwest Art: “Women in the Arts”, November 1996 and Watercolor, March 1998. Splash V, the Best of Watercolor, the Glory of Color, features her painting, “Stage of Antiquity”. The May 2016 issue of Art and Antiques features  Baker’s oil/cold wax painting from the Chronos Series.

Represented by Owen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM  https://www.owencontemporary.com

Represented by Brown’s Fine Art, Jackson MS since 1991     www.brownsfineart.com

Represented by Gallery VIII Fine Art since 1982. In 2003, Gallery VIII closed the bricks and mortar gallery in Plano, TX  to become an on-line gallery, exclusively.     www.gallery8.com

Martha painting in the window of the Dallas, TX Neiman Marcus flagship store