Kyle Alden Martens
Kyle Alden Martens is an artist who works through sculpture, installation, performance, and video. Working towards material states of both ease and undoneness, their work aims to sculpturally represent conditions of finality and process, becoming and unbecoming. Clothing serves as an allusion, throughout Martens’ practice, to fitting and fitting in. In some cases, objects nest perfectly into places designed to accommodate them. In others, fitting is more theoretical, calling into question how queer bodies take up space. Together, these sculptural objects form installations that oscillate through ideas of pressure, tension, and yearning.
Drawing from methods of tailoring and cobbling, Martens' sculptures often allude to being worn while resisting the function of being wearable through their construction or installation. Each series presents a cohort of fetishized objects, installations, performances, or videos that move through notions of seduction and potency while discreetly altering and disrupting space.
Biography
Kyle Alden Martens’ (they/them/he/him) practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, SSHRC, FRQSC, and the Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. Recent residencies include Est-Nord-Est (2026), Doris McCarthy (2025), ACRE (2024), and Brucebo Fine Arts (2022). Martens' work has been written about in Public Parking, BlackFlash magazine, Esse arts + opinions, and CBC Arts. Martens holds an MFA in Sculpture from Concordia University and a BFA in Intermedia from NSCAD University.
Recent exhibitions
| 2026 | Split Hairs, solo exhibition, L’Écart, Rouyn-Noranda, CA Split Hairs, solo exhibition, Diagonale, Montréal, CA Felix Art Fair, group exhibition, Los Angeles, US Bag, duo exhibition Bad Water Gallery, Knoxville, Tennessee, US |
| 2025 | your voice, my throat, duo exhibition, C'cap with B. Brookbank, Winnipeg, CA Material Fair, group exhibition, Ciudad de México, MX |
| 2024 | Spun Through the Heel, solo exhibition, Patel Brown, Montréal, CA Barely Fair, group exhibition, Chicago, US |
| 2023 | Nada Foreland, group exhibition, NADA, Catskill, NY, US Personal Allegories, group exhibition, Patel Brown, Toronto, CA |