Dynamic, Provocative Images
Embodying a New Midwestern Impressionism
Non-traditional yet Romantic
I draw inspiration from the land around me.
From Central Indiana’s bland horizons to the tree lined and gracious streets
of the Irvington neighborhood in Indianapolis where I grew up.
My art is an exploration of kinetic reality and its impact on the human outlook.
Biography
About Me
John Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1988
High academic honors, majors in painting and printmaking
Post Grad
Arrowmont, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
University of Tennessee
For more than 30 years I have made art. My works, paintings, drawings, and prints, explore the human condition and life’s struggles, violence, sexuality and futility.
And all that time I have been reading. Kierkegaard, Tillich, C.S.Lewis, Kant, the Bible, Anatole France, Hughes. From the New York Times to The Atlantic to Farm World.
Currently I produce socially relevant, if somewhat feral art in my home studio. And yes, I built my home studio, and no, it is not attached to my house. I was a Stutz Artist Association member, working at the Stutz Business Center from April 2012 to Sept 2018.
Aside from art I have at various times (this is the short list):
- done carpentry (interior and exterior)
- created fine art furniture
- farmed and managed livestock
- worked as a dog bather
- repaired cars
- worked restaurant kitchens
- trimmed trees including stately Live Oak trees in Awesome Austin, TX
- traveled widely in the USA and Canada
- worked outside in all manner or weather
- jumped horses over large obstacles at great speed
- shot dying animals
- broken bones
- out lived my parents and brother
- voted, when relevant
- had surgery
- won a 5k run the day after Diana died
- gone to church
- given birth
- stood at the bedside of the dying
About The Work
My “serious artworks” always have a story telling nature, and I purposefully make the narrative’s meaning’s tricky to suss out.
I want you, the viewer, to have to study the image and think about it for yourself.
My art functions as both narrative and visual puzzles. I’m a trickster. You have to discover if I am a trustworthy tale teller or not.
I have complex notions about what my images mean and I leave clues about MY perspective, but I hope you take these works, through your mind’s eye, to interesting and satisfying places.
Like all travel the destination is not a final answer, it’s the twists and turns of the journey that really matter.
Fasten your seat belts, a visual trip with MCLV is gonna be a bumpy ride!
In the Press
A night’s journey: From the Stutz to the April Show
(NUVO)
Artists channel darker experiences in exhibit focused on dealing with tragedy
(Greenfield Daily Reporter)
Women artists celebrate their maturity with calendar, exhibition, lectures
(Indianapolis Recorder)
Interview about the Stutz Artists Open House
(WFYI’s Art of the Matter)
Stutz artist shares her favorite foodie things
(Indianapolis Star)
Women Artists Turn Up the Heat to Benefit Pink Ribbon Connection
(Sophisticated Living)
(NUVO)
(Greenfield Daily Reporter)
(Indianapolis Recorder)
(WFYI’s Art of the Matter)
(Indianapolis Star)
(Sophisticated Living)
Expressive, Challening, Representational
My emphasis is on movement and gesture.
I have a strong background in drawing which I refined working in printmaking: relief; woodcut;etching; litho.
The paintings, both oil and acrylics, feature both mundane and fantastical imagery; color used to express and reinforce the emotional content of the works.
What of the Horses?
Horses are metaphors for life’s unpredictability. Classic symbols of war, vanity, beauty, and wealth, I place them in contexts rich with the perils and triumphs of modernity. They flip and throw their riders. In ink washes they nuzzle kittens tenderly in the barn; or throw hooves at the unwise.
Brief Exhibition History
Selected Juried Exhibitions
Irvington Presents: Irvington Historical Society Juried Exhibition; 2013
The American Academy of Equine Art, Fall Juried Exhibitions; 2008, 2011
Herron Alumni Juried Exhibit: Coming Home; 2011
Herron Alumni Show at Cultural Arts Gallery IUPUI Campus Center; 2009
Monroe Bank Art Gallery; 2008
Pendleton Arts Center: Annual Juried Shows; 2009, 2010, 2011
Selected Exhibitions
Changing the Story; The Raymond James Stutz Art Gallery, 2016
Stutz Artist Association’s April Open House; Stutz Business Center, 2006 to 2015
Cold, Dark, Unsecurity; The Raymond James Stutz Art Gallery, 2015
431 Gallery: Art and Impact; Indiana State Museum, 2014
Works by Martha Lindenborg Vaught and Julie Perigo; St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 2014
Martha Vaught (one person exhibition); Benjamin’s Coffee House, Franklin, IN, annually through 2014.
Martha Lindenborg Vaught and JanettMarie Braun; St Luke’s United Methodist Church, 2013
First Peek; Raymond James STUTZARTSPACE, 2013
Women on Fire; Raymond James STUTZARTSPACE, 2012
The Art of Martha Lindenborg Vaught; Redpath Gallery, Franklin, IN, 2010
Stutz on the Road; Henry County Art Center, sponsored by Edward Jones Investments, 2010
Art from the Fourth Chakra; STUTZARTSPACE, Oct 2010
Martha Lindenborg Vaught, One Person Show; 431 Gallery, 1993
