Artist Martha Ferris is from Vicksburg, MS. She is married to writer Kos Kostmayer. She studied art history in college. After college, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she met her husband. They moved to Vicksburg in 1990.
She won several public art commissions, including the first riverfront mural for Vicksburg in 2001. In 2003, she was commissioned to paint a mural on stainless steel for the 55-foot central rotunda of the new McWillie School in Jackson. She was commissioned to produce the McRaseChildren’s Fountains in the garden at the Mississippi Museum of Art. She was awarded the Mississippi Arts and Letters in Visual Arts for 2016.
She works in a variety of media, producing paintings, murals, and other works. She lives and works in her studio on her family’s farm near Vicksburg.