Tina Martel is a professional artist, author/illustrator and retired art instructor. Her professional credentials include a Bachelor of Fine Arts from AU Arts in Calgary and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary.  Both are in painting, which led her to a career as both a practicing artist and award winning instructor at Northwest Polytechnic in Alberta. She has exhibited across Canada, the USA, Germany, Estonia, Israel, China and Korea. In spite of the label of painter, her exhibitions have spanned a variety of media including mixed media acrylic, drawing, paper making, sculpture, installation and video. 

In 2011, after being diagnosed with Stage 2B breast cancer, she was treated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The diagnosis led her to write and illustrate the book Not in the Pink, about her experience. She referred to it as the book she wanted to read and frequently describes herself as “an artist who accidentally wrote a book.” The book went on to win a place on several best seller lists as well as 11 awards, including the Whistler Independent Book Award in 2018.

Unfortunately, she was diagnosed again with Stage 1 breast cancer in 2015. Thankful for the early diagnosis, she was treated with surgery and radiation. Tina continued to teach through most of her recovery, eventually succumbing to exhaustion due to the relentless follow-up and stress inducing results. At this point in 2019 she opted for a double mastectomy, without reconstruction. This decision changed the course of her personal artwork as she started focusing more on her healing body as a source of inspiration. This opened up an avenue to become an advocate for women in her same situation. 

At this crossroads Tina started an Instagram account to find fashion that fit her own altered body and launched a very public forum of her opinion. Her account remains to this day a focus for her energy. The account now fluctuates between fashion for flat women and dealing with multiple cancer diagnoses, as she was diagnosed with an extremely rare and incurable Tcell lymphoma in 2021 followed by a diagnosis of MEC (mucoepidermoid carcinoma) in 2022. Lymphedema in both her neck and arm were diagnosed in 2023. Mental health and cancer was added to the mix of what she openly discussed on her account.

Creating the Kintsugi photos has been a dream of hers for several years. Tina was fascinated by the Japanese philosophy which espoused gilding the cracks in broken ceramic work instead of destroying them as useless. She applied that theory to her own body and gold leafed her numerous scars to illustrate that she wasn’t broken, that the scars merely add to the beauty of the human body. She is now releasing the images publicly. 

Tina lives happily in Langford with her husband and fellow artist Doug Wills. Her health status is currently stable and she lives fervently by the idea of living in the moment. When she is not in the studio or at medical appointments she can be found modelling, walking local runways, writing or on the beach with her beloved seals.

http://notinthepink.ca

http://www.tinamartel.com