V. Kim Martinez is a Salt Lake native and has been a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Utah since 2001. Martinez received her Master’s of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is interested in painting and drawing, encaustic painting, community murals, foundry, mosaics and video animation. Her research concerns societal structures which fluctuate between the positive and negative, the concrete and the abstract. Martinez is an enthusiastic educator and is committed to public engagement through the arts – she continues to gain local and national recognition for her contributions.