MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS

Martins’s deeply symbolic artwork frequently features cultural and personal iconography, reflecting his life experience. His paintings are richly textured and use bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materials, and text. The vibrant, heavily layered canvases often include spiritual elements and wishes manifested and fulfilled. In addition to painting, Martins also creates three-dimensional art through using found objects and mixed media. As Martins describes:

My artwork is intentionally raw. I like to use a lot of different materials and have rough-cut edges on the canvas. The paintings are textured with scratches, scribbles, and mud-like paint, as well as clay, liquid plastic, oil sticks, chunky layers of oil paint. I layer the background and then deconstruct them, which gives the feeling of wear and tear on the canvas. No painting is alike as each has symbolic patterns and encrypted messages hidden within it. I want to merge the vision with the given and the new world that I live in now. The word ‘Why?’ is seen in a lot of the work because it leaves you asking the same question.

Forbidden by his father to create or study art, Martins spent his college years in Ghana and the Ivory Coast studying computer science. He immigrated to New York City in 2015 to further pursue his artistic ambitions. Martins’ artwork has been exhibited at the Nassau County Museum (Roslyn, NY), TrafficArts (New York, NY), Long-Sharp Gallery (Indianapolis, IN), Path Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Dacia Gallery (New York, NY), Heath Gallery (New York, NY), and Grady Alexis Gallery (New York, NY).

Courtesy Galerie Tanit, Beyrouth/Munich.