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My name is Martha Aitchison. Born in Argentina in 1939, I studied architecture at Buenos Aires University (1957-62). In England I became a Chartered Town Planner in 1967 and worked as a planning officer for many years. In 1990 I obtained a diploma in Art and Design at Sir John Cass, London.

I was using oils, pastels, watercolours and all the usual media when I discovered the computer as another painting tool so I began to offset digital painting against traditional methods and techniques, creating mixed media pieces. In some of them I translated the digital images into collagraphs, stencils, silkscreens or included them as inkjet prints in mixed artwork. Even my oils and water-colours often derive from digital images because I frequently use the computer as a convenient sketchbook and image laboratory.

Between 1988 and 1996 I participated in more than forty art shows and competitions both in England and abroad and my work is in the print collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, because of my pioneering use of the computer as an art medium.

In 1997, after two and a half years of work, I finished painting the Life of the Buddha in six wooden panels for the Thames Buddhist Vihara, my local monastery. From then onwards I have continued to work mainly on Buddhist themes with the computer and also in oils and water-colours, the latter medium being particularly well suited to reflect Buddhist thought. Some of my images are inspired by religious themes and others illustrate observations from my own experience as a Buddhist. I also do illustrations for Buddhist publishers and educational institutions.

Since 1995 I have also been very much involved with the Mail Art community, a world wide network of artists who send their artwork to each other by post and find alternative venues to the commercial art gallery for their shows.

Shaman's Dream mixed media monoprint 20th Century Print collection Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The snail as heraldic animal can be interpreted as a symbol of the changing nature of things with its ability to appear and disappear flowing with conditions as it finds them, aestivating or hibernating as necessary. When it retires into its shell it seems to close the doors of perception and become centred. Being a nocturnal creature it has been associated with the moon, representing both the unconscious and the darker side of the psyche which has to be integrated into the personality in order to be complete, or in other words, sane. It embodies the male and the female in the same individual and therefore it represents also wholeness. Finally the snail is very prolific, which brings to mind the creativity of the artist. This is why I have made the Snail my device and sign my work with a spiral or a cartoon snail the pictures for children.