A parrot confined to a too-small cage, jellyfish floating above fungi and ferns, and a spotted octopus resting as the centerpiece to a flourishing bouquet are a few of the surreal scenes in the works of Martin Wittfooth. The artist is known for his enigmatic paintings that meld flora and fauna to consider interconnection and nature’s endurance.
Wittfooth currently splits his time between Savannah and Brockville, although he plans to relocate permanently to the latter this year. Before he begins preparing for a solo exhibition in spring 2027 with Hashimoto Contemporary, the artist is completing a few larger commissions.
He enjoys the balance between larger bodies of work and singular pieces: “A unified field of concepts and vibes, to have all of the pieces in an exhibition have a kind of kindred dialogue going on between one another, and then when the dust settles in between shows, to have singular works to focus on, where I can slow down just a bit and let the new ideas start to form for the next show,” he says.
Along with Yuko Shimizu, Wittfooth will also mentor at the unique Quarantine residency this April. This is his third time participating in the program, and it’s one that informs much of the way he thinks about connection. He’s always impressed by “how quickly bonds form between the students, between the mentors, between the students and the mentors, and with the whole crew that runs the show,” he says, adding:
There’s been a lot of emphasis on this notion that community is important—as a species, we’ve appreciated this in our various ways for as long as we’ve been around—but for artists, this is often a bit of a struggle to develop and to maintain, considering the isolating nature of how we work. It’s also something that seems to have become more broadly murky and confused in this era of social media, with person-to-person contact being replaced by virtual interactions and projection of virtual selves—methods of communication that I personally feel are missing the essential ingredient of connection.
You can find more about the program on Colossal, and explore Wittfooth’s work on his website and Instagram.
