Perrotin Shanghai is delighted to present Eddie Martinez's solo exhibition Fingers Pointing at the Moon on Nov 5, 2021, marking the artist's first gallery exhibition in Mainland China since his 2019 institutional debut, Open Feast at Yuz Museum, Shanghai. The artworks on view comprise Martinez's recent drawings, works on canvas, and tabletop bronze sculptures.
Eddie Martinez's works are delightful to the visually versed. Rooted in the painting tradition, informed by art historical precedents, and expressed with a contemporary sensibility, Martinez has focused on rudimentary subjects in painting, namely, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, since launching his artistic career in 2005. Over the years, while the artist continues to work on these subjects, his cartoon-like figuration gained speed in execution, his subjects transformed with gestural marks, and his painted surface grew more tactile and audacious in colour. Such an evolution may, in part, be indebted to his diaristic drawing habit that shapes his compositional intelligence and partly being a keen observer of an ever-changing world around him. The following conversation between Eddie Martinez and art critic, writer, and curator Fiona He, shines a light on the artist's recent body of work presented at Perrotin, Shanghai.
FH: Let's start with the title of this exhibition, Fingers Pointing at the Moon. Presumably, this refers to the Buddhist teaching 'Like a finger pointing to the moon.' If I remember correctly, this phrase appeared in a 1973 film Enter the Dragon, starring the martial art master Bruce Lee, who demanded his disciple for 'emotional content' over 'an exhibition of techniques.' What are the 'fingers,' and what is the moon for you in this body of works?
EM: Excellent reference! Not as specific as that, but not unrelated. More looking at life and the subject matter that makes it into my drawings. To surmise, I think Jeffrey Lebowski illustrated this perfectly, 'I could just be sitting here with pee stains on my rug.' In other words, stop running to something, embrace what is already here/there and be grateful for that.
FH: There is one 'white-out' painting in this show that shares the exhibition title. Not only has most of the canvas been painted over with a thin white layer, but some of the bold lines that help viewers to, possibly, identify particular objects are retraced. It's as if you are erasing what's been done, like the way we use 'white-out' for handwriting or typewriter back in the days. What prompted you to adopt this formal device?
EM: Well, yeah, that is it right there. I like that you refer to it as formal. I don't think like that, so I appreciate it when other people do. There's not much else to say, and you nailed it on the head.
FH: If we look at your practice as a whole, whether on canvas, on paper, on cardboard, or on sculptures, some compositions seem to be recurring, yet each piece is unique. Is there a reason that you recycle your compositions?
EM: True. There's likely more than one way to answer this. But I think it's about memory, repetition, variations, similarities, polarities, clarity, and the potential that keeps me interested. Once something has become objectified, I use it like cut and paste to express moods.
FH: Although you continue to work with many of your recurring archetypes, including the tabletops, flower vases, blockhead figures, etc., it seems to me, a kind of remix is happening on your canvas. For instance, the vase full of flowers, which seemed like an archetype in itself formerly, begins to appear on tabletops or on a table surrounded by big head figures (which you've painted multiple versions of many years ago). How do they get put together on a painting? What's your process?
EM: Good thinking. Cool that you picked up on that. I think that is when art imitates life as my daily life becomes a daily painting, and it folds into itself. The process is more of an in-person description.
FH: What are the reasons to resituate these supercharged everyday subjects in seemingly even more commonplace scenarios?
EM: Interesting. No reason other than it's how I've worked for so long that whatever reason may have been, then I have now washed away.
FH: I've noticed many of your works' titles are spin-off words, for example, Dustopian, Purple Mush Room. While they are playful in nature, they also seem to expand an imaginary space. Do you intentionally relate the verbal dimension of the title to the visual language of your work?
EM: Well, I leave that to the viewer for the most part. But like song titles, I enjoy when people catch at least part of the reference and how it may relate to them.
FH: There are many small-size works on cardboard in this exhibition. In comparison to your drawings, they show a different degree of 'completeness.' Meanwhile, it seems a lot of things are happening in them. When did you start painting on cardboard, and how conjuring this amount of content on such limited space is a different experience from working in the other mediums and dimensions?
EM: 2017. While I was making large-scale mandala paintings, I was simultaneously working on small cardboard versions. I kept it up, then came Covid and many daily deliveries and an overwhelming amount of cardboard....I don't know what difference it is. It either works, or it doesn't.
FH: I've noticed in the work descriptions that you've made many of the frames using strip wood. Why make the frames yourself?
EM: Because then it becomes an 'artist frame.' Part of the painting not just a trick to make it look more important.
FH: Some unconventional items appear on the canvas, such as baby wipes and pieces of cut-out canvas from presumably 'failed' pictures. How do you decide on what fits a particular work? Moreover, since your painted marks and drawings exhibit fast execution, does your thought process match the gestural executions?
EM: Impulsivity but also intentionality, particularly with past painting pieces. Those will generally fit into the composition. The other stuff is just trash. So much trash involved to make art. It's a problem. At least glue some of it down. Back into painting earth.
About the artist
Eddie Martinez was born in 1977 on Groton Naval Base, Groton, Connecticut. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. A self-taught artist who is well known for his vibrant colours, dynamic brushstrokes, and impeccable intuition, energy exudes from the brisk markings he makes with acrylic, oil, spray paint, Sharpies, and even baby wipes. Martinez's practice reflects elements of historical movements such as action painting and neoexpressionism, whilst spontaneously alternating between traditional and unconventional modes of painting.
Martinez's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums and institutions including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, the Drawing Center, New York, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan, and the Davis Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts. His works are included in public collections such as the Saatchi Collection and Hiscox Collection, London; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; the Marciano Collection, Los Angeles; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, Morgan Library & Museum, New York; and the Davis Museum, Wellesley
Press release courtesy Perrotin.
3/F, 27 Huqiu Road
Huangpu District
200002, Shanghai
China
www.perrotin.com
+86 216 321 1234
Tues - Sat, 11am - 7pm