Melvin Martinez
San Juan, Puerto Rico
October 28, 2017 - ?
Artist's Statement
Melvin Martinez makes paintings that bring affect to the brink of autopoiesis. In a deluge of color and application that vibrates as if sonic, his works occupy oil, acrylic, glitter, confetti and decorative craft materials beyond ontological loyalties. The paintings renegotiate Martinez's debt to the optics of Pointillism, anarchy of Abstract Expressionism, resplendence of color field painting or embodied summons of gestural abstraction. They are free agents across time and consequence, expanding a living art ecology rather than terminated art histories. Martinez negates indebtedness by reimagining the currency of creative capital.
Melvin Martinez was born and lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received his BFA from the School of Fine Arts, San Juan in 2005. The same year, Martinez won the prestigious Castellon Painting Prize (Spain). His work has been exhibited in important institutions internationally, has been reviewed in significant publications, and is in major collections in the United States, Europe and Latin America. His work is included in Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon (MUSAC); Museo de Bellas Artes, Castellon, Spain; Espai D’Art Contemporani, Castellon, Spain; Museum Collection Lambert, Avignon, France; MAP, Museum of Ponce, Puerto Rico; MAC, Museum of Contemporary Art, Puerto Rico; VAC, Valencia Arte Contemporáneo, Valencia, Spain; Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California; The Rubell Family Collection, and the de la Cruz Collection, Miami, among others.
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