Marta
Torrassa

The Artist

María Marta
Torrassa

Painter · Ibiza

Marta Torrassa is an Argentine artist based in Ibiza, whose work is born from the encounter between femininity and nature. Her pictorial universe is inhabited by women, flowers, leaves, birds, insects and small animals that intertwine to create scenes full of sensitivity, colour and fantasy.

Nature is the thread that runs through her work. It is her constant source of inspiration and the place from which she observes, imagines and creates. As she herself explains:

«Nature inspires me deeply. I feel very connected to it.»

There is a phrase by Albert Einstein she is especially fond of, which sums up her way of looking at things:

«Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.»

In her paintings, femininity and nature are intimately linked. Her women appear surrounded by flowers, leaves, birds, insects and small animals, creating a universe in which the human and the natural meet and blend. Nature is not merely a decorative element — it is part of her characters and of the stories she wants to tell.

Her relationship with art began in childhood. Her mother would take her to exhibitions by great Argentine painters, and she, as a little girl, would follow along, fascinated by the paintings. Until one day her mother handed her a pencil and a piece of paper and said: «Draw». That simple gesture was the beginning of a vocation that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

After completing her degree in Advertising, Marta travelled to Paris to devote herself to artistic make-up. There she began working in productions and cinema, and also developed body-painting projects. That experience left a significant mark on her way of understanding image, colour and, especially, the female face.

But while she developed her professional career, she never stopped painting. In her free time she kept creating, gradually building her own artistic language.

Paris was a fundamental stage both in her life and in her painting. During those years she began to develop a style led by women, many of them tied to the Parisian imaginary. Her first exhibition took place in Ibiza, where she showed some of the works she had created during that period — many of them painted at night.

From that point on, her work entered a process of constant evolution. Her style shifted as her experiences and the places she inhabited shifted with her. Around four years ago she felt a particularly strong need to transform her painting, and began a new stage, more connected to nature.

«In my art everything revolves for me between femininity and nature.»

Ibiza holds a very special place within that journey. Since she first came to the island, nearly four decades ago, she has kept a close relationship with it — living for many years between Paris and Ibiza before finally settling there.

Travel is also an essential part of her creative process. Mexico, Indonesia, Formentera and Ibiza are some of the places where she has spent long periods and found inspiration for much of her work. Painting surrounded by nature allows her to observe what later appears on her canvases: the insects, the birds, the flowers, the leaves and the small forms of life she finds around her.

There is also an element that recurs in many of her women, with a very personal origin: the large eyes and the importance of the gaze.

As a child, she used to read little books whose characters were girls with large eyes. Those images stayed with her, and over time became one of the most recognisable features of her characters.

«That is why each of my women wears make-up and it matters that they have large eyes. The gaze matters — for me, the gaze matters a great deal.»

Her experience in artistic make-up is also present in those faces. Her women appear made up, ready to be looked at, and at the same time hold an enigmatic and intimate expression. Their eyes look at the viewer and, somehow, also seem to be watching the world around them.

In recent years, her painting has found a language of its own, one in which women, flowers, animals and insects coexist within a single scene. It is a poetic, colour-filled universe, born of observation and of a deeply personal relationship with nature.

But her career is not static. Marta sees her work as a process of permanent search. She has changed, keeps changing, and knows she will keep changing. Each stage is a continuation of the previous one, but also a chance to discover something new.

Her painting is, in short, the result of a life shaped by creativity, travel and different artistic disciplines: from her childhood in Argentina and those first encounters with painting, through advertising, artistic make-up, cinema and her years in Paris, to her deep connection with Ibiza and with the natural landscapes that today feed her work.

A universe in which woman and nature meet, blend and transform each other. A universe that keeps growing with every journey, every gaze and every new painting.