THE END
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In this series, the mundane and the surreal collide in a world of miniatures. After manipulating a world through collage in the TERRAINS series, making a physical world to manipulate felt like a natural next step. Having no experience making models and almost no previous use of photography, I was intimidated by this idea but the lack of experience proved to be liberating as I had no set of rules to go by. I wanted this series to continue exploring the romanticism of landscape and the ideas of interrupted moments, invaded territories, and privacy as expressed by interiors. This time, however, I wanted to do away with the nostalgia of using old image material and exclude people to give the environments more presence.
The transitional painting between my old spray paint paintings and my current glass ones.
Acrylic, enamel, and glitter on masonite panel. 24″ x 36″
A series of collages and photographs exploring the interaction of man and landscape. Individually, the images are a nostalgic view of a fictional world. Together they bring forth a more complex narrative, one rooted in the tendency of man to transform and explore his natural surroundings, the invasion of territory and privacy, and the material nature of place and time.
An exercise in subtlety, this series aims to avoid both grotesque repulsion and exploitative pity. Both are traits that can be abused to shock and cause impact or, as in the latter, to take advantage of the viewer’s sympathy to evoke a reaction to the work. In attempting to avoid these, the paintings eventually dealt less with the subject matter than with the way the image and content became one on the canvas.
MIGUEL MARTINEZ 