Subjects of quotidian daily life are the basic features of Jose Ma Martinez’s modestly sized realistic works of oil on canvas. The artist’s color-saturated, lively portraiture is imbued with equal parts drama, wit and highly charged symbolism. Enlivened by the magical sheen of Latin America, especially its celebratory culture associated with death, sensuality, beauty and decay, these works traverse the fertile territory of Mexican cultural lore with contemporary global flair. A painter of the ‘wide horizons’ and ‘multiple realities’ which give meaning to art as life, Martinez names the canonic masters as deeply influential, as well as the greats of Latin America including Mexican artists such as Juan Rulfo, Gabriel Figueroa, Hermenegildo Bustos and his longtime teacher Spanish master Antonio Lopez.
Jose Ma Martinez was born in a fertile village of central Mexico and currently lives in Mexico City. He is the recipient of numerous artistic honors in Mexico and in Spain and has exhibited throughout his native country.