Colin Martin is an artist and lecturer based in Dublin. He is currently Head of the RHA School. He is a graduate of TU Dublin and NCAD and his current practice is concerned with the intersection of analogue painting with digital and technological cultures. The practice explores spaces that blur boundaries between the real and virtual and where technology, culture and politics have become synthesized.

Martin has been an active participant and educator in the Irish visual arts cultural landscape acting as the chairperson in Black Church Print Studio where he initiated projects such as Black Church Process (an initiative to produce collaborations with artists and master printmakers and the A&E public talk series). He has been member of the RHA Council and Programme Board and has initiated public talk series, national and international artist master classes, drawing groups, Critical Correspondence Courses and structured skill workshops for artists at the RHA. He has served as a judge on the RDS Graduate Award Panel, Marmite Prize for Painting, This Is Art and the British Institute Fund. He has curated exhibitions ‘What is and What Might be’ and ‘This is Not Architecture’ at the Highlanes Gallery and ‘Real Real’ at the Waterford Municipal Gallery. In 2024 Martin was the curator of the RDS Visual Arts Awards at the RHA. Martin has been a regular contributor to VAI Newsletter and has been a speaker on many artist panels such as Rethinking The Image 2025, We Need To Talk About Painting at the Complex 2022 and Dubliners, Zagreb 2021.

Martin’s most recent touring solo exhibition is entitled ‘Empathy Lab’ which was exhibited in the Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI), Paris in September 2023 and toured to the Highlanes gallery in Drogheda in 2024. He has exhibited widely in both Ireland and internationally and most recently in group exhibitions; Foreword International Centre For The Image 2025, Staying With The Trouble IMMA 2025, Moments of Being Solstice Gallery Navan 2025, The Art Of Sport Butler Gallery Kilkenny 2023, We Are Here Highlanes Gallery Drogheda 2022, Woman In The Machine Visual Carlow, Dubliners, Zagreb, HDLU, Mestrovic Pavillion 2021, Locations of Estrangement Gibbons and Nicholas Art Projects London Art Fair 2020, Moving Spaces Glucksman Gallery Cork 2019, Syntonic State Tulca, Surveille.e.s Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris, House Taken Over Private House Belfast 2018, This is Not Architecture Highlanes Gallery Drogheda 2017, Far From Me Josef Fillip Gallery Leipzig , N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Interview Room 11 Edinburgh 2016. He is a multiple recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary which he received major awards in 2025/2022/2021/2020/2015/2012 and 2007. He received the RCSI Award in 2021. Martin was elected a full member of the RHA since 2008. His work is in many public and private collections such the Arts Council, UCC, OPW, Fingal Arts and the RHA.