Woman in a blue shirt smiling and standing in front of a wall of dog paintings

About the Artist

Martina Goulart is a fine art painter based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.

From her studio surrounded by redwoods, she creates imaginative oil paintings inspired by nature, family, exploration, and the places and experiences that become part of our lives.

Her paintings often begin with something real - a trail, an animal, the ocean, a family adventure and then imagination takes over.

Girl sailing a paper boat through crashing waves and rocks, looking through binoculars toward a seal on a distant rock with cliffs and flying birds.

Why I Paint What I Paint

I paint because it makes me happy. I love taking an idea that exists only in my imagination and watching it become something real on canvas. But I also want my paintings to give something back - to bring joy, especially to children, and to inspire people to stay curious about their lives and the world around them.

Oil painting of a child with butterfly wings holding a lantern in a twilight forest.

The children in my paintings aren't there simply because they're children. They remind me of qualities that come naturally when we're young and can become harder to hold onto as we grow older: curiosity, courage, imagination, presence, and the willingness to explore without knowing exactly what we'll find.

My paintings may begin with a playful idea, a child sailing in a paper boat, a whale rising into the sky, jellyfish floating above a harbor, but underneath, they are often asking us to slow down, notice, wonder, and remember parts of ourselves we may have forgotten.

Woman wearing sunglasses and a blue shirt in a forest setting

My Journey

I was born and raised in the Czech Republic, where my love for art began early. At 21, I came to the United States looking for adventure. I had never even flown on an airplane before.

That decision became one of many experiences that taught me something I still carry with me: we are often capable of much more than we think.

Life has also taught me resilience. Not everything that shapes us is something we choose. There are good seasons and difficult ones, and I've learned that when life is hard, things eventually change. Morning comes. A new day begins.

That is where much of the hope in my paintings comes from. Not from believing life will always be easy, but from believing there is always reason to keep going.

Today, I live and paint in the Santa Cruz Mountains, surrounded by the redwoods, coast, wildlife, and family experiences that continually find their way into my work.

Oil painting of a boy and his dog overlooking the Big Sur California coastline.

What I Hope You Find

I don't want my paintings to tell you what to think.

I want them to invite you in.

A child might see an adventure. Someone else might recognize determination, belonging, possibility, a memory, or something they had forgotten about themselves.

I hope the paintings encourage us to stay curious, to spend time with the people we love, to remain connected to the natural world, and to notice the experiences happening while we're living them.

And perhaps, during one of life's harder seasons, a painting can quietly remind us that hope is still there, even when we can't see it yet.

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