Martha Steele (b. 2002) is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in the GTA, specializing in figurative painting and sculpture. A recent graduate of the BFA (Honours) program at Queen’s University, her practice draws from her professional experience in horticulture through explorations of ecological research and queer identity. 

Steele’s practice is rooted in sustainable artmaking and land-based learning. Her interest in horticulture began at Howe Island’s organic farm Root Radicals and continued through the Loving Spoonful’s Farm-Specific Trades Program and KASSI’s Seed-Saving Initiative. Her honours thesis project One Day I’ll Build an Earthship explores the intersection of contemporary art production and horticulture. In reimagining and transforming recycled materials, Steele seeks to create communal spaces that foster connection and reciprocity. This research connected Steele to a network of queer and allied communities dedicated to environmental sovereignty and decolonization, laying the foundation for her current focus on archival research, queer ecologies and speculative futures.

Steele approaches her representational work as a forum for storytelling and world-building, using it to examine identity, kinship, and the intersection of human and nonhuman ecologies. Investigating queer intimacy through hyper-saturated colour, Steele subverts hyperbolic contrast to reclaim queer visuality. Her figurative works often embrace humour, excess, and sensory intensity to destabilize heteronormativity — further documenting lived experience while imagining worlds not yet possible.

Steele’s work has been exhibited across Ontario and Quebec, including at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Union Gallery, and Canadian Summit Centre, and is in the permanent collections of Queen’s University Print Archives and the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre. Steele looks forward to researching, exhibiting and collaborating in Toronto as she plans to pursue her MFA in 2026.