Marti DeCoste is an award winning contemporary artist who creates semi-abstract artwork from her home studio located in the charming coastal fishing village of Calabash, NC. Although she was born in Mississippi and raised in Texas, she has lived in San Diego and New England for most of her adult life before settling in the Carolinas. Marti expresses her creativity through various art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking and mixed media.

Her art is characterized by movement, vivid colors, bold mark-making, and experimentation, which together create a visual narrative that connects the artist's experiences and vision to the viewer. Her body of work is diverse, encompassing landscapes, seascapes, figures, and abstracts. Her abstract figures portray the strength and grace of the female form from a female perspective. These figurative works incorporate symbolism from history, color, and nature, such as the ginkgo tree, which represents strength, wisdom, endurance, and longevity.

Nature and humanity have the perseverance and will to thrive through the darkest of times. This is the underlying message that permeates her work.

Marti holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Painting and Drawing and is classically trained as an artist from the University of Southern Maine.

While studying at USM, Marti was selected to attend two artist residency programs. In 2018, she spent ten days in Acadia National Park at the Schoodic Institute, where she experimented with drawing from nature and learned about the history of Acadia and the Wabanaki Nations. In 2019, she participated in another artist residency program on the Tuscan farm Tenuta di Spannochia, along with a group of Maine artists. During this residency, she exclusively worked with pastels, capturing images of Siena and Florence, and immersing herself in the Tuscan landscape, art, and culture of Italy.

Marti started her journey into the world of art as a way to cope with grief. After losing her daughter in 2011, she moved to Maine where she lived on Peaks Island for 11 years. This island off the coast of Portland was a place that her husband's family had been visiting for generations, and it was where her daughter had loved to be. With the support of her family, she immersed herself in art as a form of therapy. This helped her to heal and inspired her to continue her studies. She completed her art degree in 2018.