The OCAD U community mourns the passing of alumna Martha Robinson

The OCAD U community mourns the passing of alumna Martha Robinson last week, at the age of 56. Martha was an accomplished painter, illustrator, and writer whose rural background informed her remarkable investigations of animal life over her career as an artist and scholar. After graduating from OCA in 1984 with a diploma in Illustration, Martha worked as a studio artist for three decades, having solo exhibitions in public and private galleries and juried shows before returning to formal education as a graduate student. In 2014, she completed her MA in Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories at OCAD, with a thesis entitled “Sheepish: Posthumanism and the Ovine in Contemporary Art,” which considered the place of sheep in a number of contemporary artists’ works. At the time of her passing, Martha was pursuing a PhD in Art History at Concordia University in Montréal, conducting innovative and interdisciplinary research into avian life, posthumanism, extinction, and the Anthropocene. In recent years, she also contributed catalogue essays for a number of contemporary exhibitions at Art Mûr, and taught in both the undergraduate program in Art History at Concordia and the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at OCAD U. A brilliant and dedicated scholar whose curiosity was matched by her warmth of humour and generosity of spirit, Martha will be remembered by those who knew her as the best and kindest of colleagues and friends.

Memorial donations to The Canadian Cancer Society would be appreciated and may be received at www.rossfuneralchapel.com

In accordance with Martha’s wishes, private memorial services have been held.