Martha K. Moore grew up on a farm in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Her first formal art instruction was through local extension classes from the University of Virginia. At Emory and Henry College she studied with the late Professor George Chavatel. Early on, she began to develop her unique style of painting with realism and detail. Martha became a high school English teacher, married, began a family, and earned an M.A. from East Tennessee State University. She continued to paint, exhibiting at the Virginia Highlands Festival in Abingdon, VA, and in shows in Elizabethan and Johnson City, TN.
In 1982 Martha’s family moved to Shelby, NC, where she taught high school English and created art as time allowed. In 2008 Martha left teaching to return to painting full time. She creates landscapes (mountains, streams, beaches, waterfalls, old buildings), flowers, and animals in her uniquely realistic detail, in watercolor and oil.
Martha draws on images from the farm of her childhood and from the mountains of Western North Carolina, as well as from her travels. In 2009 and 2012 she received the “Best in Show” award at Arts on the Square in Shelby, NC. She has exhibited in Valle Crucis, NC, in the Carolinas Got Art Exhibition in Charlotte, the Cleveland County Artists’ Competitions, the Mountain Visions Exhibition at the Reece Museum of East Tennessee State University, the Artisphere Festival in Greenville, SC, the Atalaya Festival at Huntington Beach, SC, the Penrod Show at the State Museum in Indianapolis, IN, the Peoria Art Guild’s annual show in IL, and the NC Artists’ Exhibition in Raleigh.
In 2011 she was Artist in Residence at Hickory Knob State Park and in 2014 at Table Rock State Park, both in SC. She was half of a two-person show at the Art Station in Gastonia, NC, in 2011 and at the Cleveland County Arts Council in 2014, and she did a one-person exhibit at the Cleveland County Memorial Library in 2019. In 2013 her “Overhang” won the Emerging Artist award at the Watercolor Society of NC’s annual show. Her “Hay in the Barn” won first place in the Gaston Arts Council Miniature Show in 2014; “Smoky Mountain National Park” won first place in the Gaston Natural View Show in 2016, and “Great Blue” won first place in 2018. Her “Sunflowers !!” won the Western Region Award at the NC Watercolor Society’s annual exhibition in 2017, and “Stonebridge” won the same award in 2018. In 2020 her “Stone Mountain Cabin” won second place in the Cleveland County Artists’ Competition; “Mossy Creek” won Best in Show in the Gaston Natural View Show; and “Carrick Creek II” won the Dr. Kenneth W. Hanck Memorial Award in the Watercolor Society of NC’s annual exhibit.
Martha’s work is shown at Buffalo Creek Gallery in Shelby, NC. She is a 7-year signature member of the Watercolor Society of NC, and her paintings hang in private collections in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, California, Arizona, Israel, and Vietnam.
To inquire about specific paintings or commissions, contact Martha.