Rä di Martino deals principally with our perception of reality and fiction, drawing attention to the absurdity of representing either. The artist’s background in theatre and her passion for film emerge not just in her videos, but in photographic and installation work. Sets, actors and props are used variously to pick apart subjects as diverse as human relationships, cinematographic traditions, the theatre of war, and the fabrication of history.

Di Martino studied in London where she graduated with an MFA at the Slade School of Art. She won a fellowship at Columbia University, spending a few years in New York, before moving back to Italy. Her practice explores the passage of time, as well as the discrepancies that differentiate epic narratives from lived experiences. Her works are characterised by a tension between pathos and a certain detachment: a disconnectedness that interrupts the synchronicity binding image and text. 

Recent solo presentations include: Electric Whispers, Beirut Art Center (Lebanon, 2025) and Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia (Italy, 2025); Kant Can’t Can-Can, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (Italy, 2025); Kant Can't, Pinacoteca Provinciale di Provenza (Italy, 2024); Play, Platea Palazzo Galeano, Lodi (Italy, 2023); All of his steps were sentiments, all of his teeth were ideas, Copperfield, London (UK, 2023); Isolitudine, ZACentrale, Palermo (Italy, 2022); Là dove muore, canta; Carmelo Bene’s archive, Lecce & Torre Matta, Otranto (Italy, 2022);  Play it again, Forte Belvedere, Florence (Italy, 2022); L’eccezione, Lio Capital Art Prize, Milan (Italy, 2020) and Museo del Novecento, Florence (Italy, 2019); Rä di Martino, Museo del ‘900, Florence (Italy, 2019); Pilgrimage, Fondazione Volume!, Rome (Italy, 2019); Afterall, Mattatoio, Rome (Italy, 2019).
 
Di Martino’s work has been presented at institutions internationally including: Tate Modern, London (UK); MoMA PS1, New York (USA); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (Italy); GAM and Fondazione Sandretto, Turin (Italy); MACRO and MAXXI, Rome (Italy); Museion, Bolzano (Italy); MCA, Chicago (USA); KunstMuseum St. Gallen (Switzerland); Fondazione Merz, Turin (Italy); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (Germany); Forte Belvedere - Museo Novecento, Florence (Italy); Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, California (USA); Museum Quartier, Vienna (Austria); ISCP Studios, New York (USA); Museo Del 900, Milan (Italy); MAMbo, Bologna (Italy); Fondazione Ratti, Como (Italy); Museo Castromediano, Lecce (Italy); Fondazione Giuliani, Roma (Italy); Magasin, Grenoble (France); Beirut Art Center (Lebanon, current); PAC and HangarBicocca, Milan (Italy).
 
She has participated in many film festivals: Locarno Film Festival; VIPER Basel; Transmediale.04; New York Underground Film Festival; Kasseler Dokfest; Torino Film Festival; and the Venice Film Festival, where she won, in 2014, the SIAE Award and Gillo Pontecorvo Award and a Nastro d’Argento with the medium length documentary The Show MAS Go On (2014). Di Martino is currently developing her second-feature film, recently awarded the A Fabrica Award at the 35th Marseilles International Film Festival (2024).