TITLE is pleased to present the gallery’s inaugural exhibition Magic I, a solo presentation of paintings and sculpture by Higinio Martinez.

Experimentation is a huge part of my practice, which often starts with a subconscious action and leads to a constant push and pull with the painting, based on the accumulation of marks and their sequential order. Every painting has a different methodology for how it’s made, but ultimately the purpose is to channel a balance of composition, color and form while striving to be free of my personal critical thoughts. In doing this, the results and conclusions for my paintings are often a surprise, and can be far off from the speculated design that I might have started the painting with.

In this showcase of paintings, biomorphic qualities are met with urban city grit, all while wrapped in a palette that mimics that of desert terrain. Some of Martinez’s works appear as landscapes dotted by heavy moons and blustering clouds, while others are reminiscent of what one might find under a microscope in a petri dish. Martinez’s experience as a musician is evident with each brush stroke and line, as they dance across his bumpy surfaces; shapes lean into one another, twirling to an unheard rhythm, elegant while others more brash and raw.

I often make paintings on found or untraditional materials due to their availability. I choose colors based off of the amount of paint that’s left over from the previous run. This interaction sparks an exciting feeling of deviance, while also feeling more connected to objects for their repurposed history. I think the scarcity of resources in my communities has led me to develop this type of practice.

Resourceful with a scrappy mentality, Martinez is unwasteful in his use of medium. Rather than sourcing new material to work with when beginning a painting, Martinez often employs leftover paint and other materials that have gone unused from previous projects.

Alongside Martinez’s paintings are small, hanging sculptures. Coarse, shiny black blocks of what appear to be chunks of glistening wet asphalt ripped from the ground and immediately hung on a wall are grounded by the tacked-on, heavy-handed drawings of black ink onto thin, delicately sized pocketbook paper. 

“Sometimes the hardest part of painting is to disregard my taste of aesthetics, and let a mark live and contribute to a painting without judgement.”

Higinio Martinez (b. 1992) is a self-taught visual artist with a background in biochemistry and music composition. Born in Farmington, NM, Martinez now resides in Los Angeles. The artist is largely influenced by his childhood spent in the southwest, as well as his current residence on the west coast.

IG: @higgyslug