Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present You think that you know but you know that you don’t, a solo exhibition of new works by Eddie Martinez at Goethestraße 2/3, in Berlin. This is the artist’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery.
Eddie Martinez’s artistic practice is characterised by his personal iconography, featuring signature elements such as bug-eyed humans in eclectic headgear, blockheads and the recurring butterfly motif of the ‘Buflies’. Brimming with cross-references to his everyday visual experiences, art history, and his own earlier work, his paintings show an energetic use of colour and bold contours, executed in various combinations of oil, enamel, spray paint, collage and studio detritus.
Martinez is best known for his large-scale wall works incorporating figuration and abstraction, painting and drawing, which foreground his signature muscular brushwork. In his paintings, Martinez seeks to translate the speed and immediacy of drawing – his original primary medium – into complex compositions on large-scale canvases. His use of different media owes much to his desire to emulate the creative velocity of pen and paper on a large format.
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The energy and vitality which characterizes Martinez’s work manifests itself variously in playfulness and slightly unsettling compositions. Defined by his intense interest in the world around us with its many visual influences and stimuli, Martinez’s method of working combines classical forms of painting like still life, portrait, and landscape with the speed in drawing, which he approaches in a form of stream-of-consciousness, to develop his unique artistic style.
Eddie Martinez (*1977, Groton, Connecticut) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Martinez’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including Space K, Seoul (2024); Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (both 2019); The Bronx Museum, New York (2018); The Drawing Center, New York; and Davis Museum at Wellesley College (2017). The artist is representing the Republic of San Marino with a solo exhibition entitled Nomader as part of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2024).
Martinez’s works are in the collections of Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanas City; La Colección, Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo, Madrid; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the High Museum Atlanta; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; The Marciano Collection, Los Angeles; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; and The Long Museum, Shanghai, among others.
Eddie Martinez / You think that you know…
but you know that you don’t
Jun 7 – Aug 3, 2024
Max Hetzler Gallery
Berlin, Germany
