About

Michelle Yi Martin is a multi-disciplinary artist based in San Francisco. Her practice is rooted in the progressive traditions of the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College. In this spirit, she continues as an educator - weaving history, literature, and the arts with her students.

Yi Martin completed residencies at Textilsetur in Blönduós, Iceland (2017); the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, CT (2019); and the Space Program in San Francisco (2020). Yi Martin received a grant from the Danish Arts Council to exhibit her work in Aarhus, Denmark (2019). She has exhibited at the Textile Center in Iceland; Ovartaci Museum in Denmark; Nationale in Portland, OR; Round Weather in Oakland, CA; the Berkeley Art Center, CA; Artist Television Access in San Francisco; the Grove Collective in London.; Venetia Incentives in New York; Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, CA; 120710 Gallery in Berkeley; Minnesota Street Projects in San Francisco; Arion Press in San Francisco; Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, and the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum in Copenhagen. Her practice of "weaving light" was also featured as part of the Anni Albers exhibit at the New Britain Museum of American Art, at the Copenhagen Light Festival, and with an art collective for a video installation on the Manhattan Bridge. She has also been a Black Mountain College contributing artist and installed a series of sculptures for their annual ReHappening in 2024.

Yi Martin will be in a two-person exhibit at the Bolinas Museum in 2025, and she will also exhibit at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles the same year. She has been represented by Municipal Bonds in San Francisco and had her second solo show with the gallery in 2023. In 2023, Yi Martin and her collaborator were invited to participate in the Craft and Design Biennale in Copenhagen where they became finalists. Additionally, she has been commissioned by MetaArts, and she has also been awarded the commission for a permanent installation at San Francisco’s newly developed Pier 70 that is currently in development.