Kirsty Martinsen is a painter, filmmaker and performer working on Kaurna land (Adelaide, South Australia). She studied at SA School of Art and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, and has exhibited in Australia, US, UK and Amsterdam. Kirsty has worked for Restless Dance Theatre and access2arts; participated in the 2016 Australia Council’s Sync Leadership Program for Disabled Artists and in 2022/23 Twilight Sync with the Australian and Canadian Council for the Arts; performed in the 2016 Fringe in a play written by Patricia Cornelius for 4 disabled women about their experience of sexuality and disability, and in the 2017 Adelaide Festival as the woman in a wheelchair in Jérôme Bel’s GALA.
Her short film, Breathe, won the Mercedes Matter/Ambassador Middendorf Award at the 2018 New York Studio School Alumni Show, the same year she was commissioned by SBS and South Australian Film Corporation to make an 8min documentary (called Limited Surrender) as part of the Full Tilt project for disabled artists. She had a studio at The Mill for 8 years. In 2022 she collaborated with Dancer Erin Fowler on a series of drawings called ‘Bodiness: call and response’ that culminated in a naked performance together about their experience of the project. Currently she’s working with Michele Saint-Ives on a short film called “There’s no amount of mindfulness…”, on a performance with NY-based Theatre-maker Erwin Maas and Adelaide artist James Dodd called “Bodiness: hands like wings” scheduled as part of the POP Gallery September 2023 Performance program, and on a horror film with screen writer Stephen Davies.