Experimenting in painting, collage, installation, sculpture, and performance, Javier Martin’s art explores themes of self-perception, consumption, technology, and contemporary social values.
Blindness
Martin’s ‘Blindness’ series (2007—ongoing) is a definitive body of work in the artist’s oeuvre that he has explored and expanded upon for more than a decade. In these works, the artist overlays black-and-white images of fashion models with neon tubing, and occasionally strokes of paint, always concealing their eyes. The symbolic blinding of the models, who represent aspirational standards of beauty in contemporary society, serves to highlight for the viewer what the artist refers to as ‘the social blindness caused by consumption and technology.’
Over the past decade, Martin has continued to build on and refine his interpretation of blindness through large-scale collages of prints, paint, and neon lights, as well as interactive installations and performances.
Lies and Light
Martin’s first performance work, Lies and Light (2016), involved the destruction of the material component that defines his ‘Blindness’ series. In the work, Martin walks through a path of white neon light tubes fanned out on the floor, smashing through each light as he proceeds and kneeling in the broken glass as he moves forward.
This journey of literal destruction of physical barriers reflects one’s personal spiritual journey through life and the overcoming of one’s past, as well as the universal struggle against conformity towards truth and freedom. Martin first performed the piece during Art Basel Hong Kong in 2016, and again in the following year at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville.
Installation and Sculpture
Martin translates ideas from his performance works and the ‘Blindness’ series into a more tangible experience for the viewer in his sculptures and installations. Blindness Alma / A Room Without Walls, an installation first conceived in 2017, is comprised of a small, mirrored room with an image of a neon-blindfolded woman suspended in a further mirror.
Developed with the contemporary dominance of social media in mind, the installation invites participants to view themselves behind the neon blindfold, challenging them to question their own blindness to this new mode of consumption.
Martin has also employed other visual metaphors in his sculpture, including a clothed wooden figure of a beggar with hand outstretched and a mirror for a face in Social Reflection, and a wooden chair that appears to melt to the ground in Climatic Change of Design (both 2017), which references the consequences of human impacts on nature.
