“One of the things I like best is when someone comes to the gallery, points to a painting, and asks, ‘Is there a story behind that?’”

That is how acclaimed wildlife artist Dr. Larry K. Martin opened his lecture, “Ephemeral Eden – Stories Behind the Paintings,” at the Oxford Performing Arts Center’s Studio venue on Thursday, November 20, 2025. The event was sponsored by the Oxford Arts Council.

The phrase in the title combines the concept of the temporary and fleeing with an idealized and peaceful place, which was a more than adequate description of what Martin would say.

It is his painting, with that title, Martin says, that has drawn the question more than any other, which led to the subject matter of his presentation.

Oxford Arts Council president Patricia Jack introduced Martin, noting his impressive background in the medical science field with a Ph.D. from Tulane, leading him to do field work in tropical medical research.

It was his 1972 journey along the Transamazônica Highway, along the Amazon River in Brazil, which was the centerpiece of his presentation. It was a journey that exposed him to an assortment of landscapes, customs, and peoples.

“It had only been a few years before when I was at Cape Canaveral watching Apollo 11 launch towards the moon,” Martin said. “I had come from the space age to the stone age.”

During the time in the Amazon, his team sought out and aided many of the people there with protections from tropical diseases, being told as he left by one of their leaders to tell everyone, “We are good people.”

Along the way, Martin took several photographs which he shared during his presentation – all taken with the same talented eye for art as displayed by his paintings.

It was after his return when he took up his love for painting in a more serious way, establishing his gallery, The Wren’s Nest, in Anniston, where his love of wildlife was prominent in his works. Many of his works are now found in major corporate and private collections.

But, still after more than five decades, there was a subject he had yet to put on canvas.

“I had taken the photograph of this young boy during that mission and told myself I would paint it one day,” he said. “I did paint it after 53 years.”

And, that was the origin of “Ephemeral Eden.”