Carlos Martinez
Instructor
Carlos is a visual artist based in New York City, whose work is about creative freedom and aesthetic rigor, not in a trivial way, but as an exploration of subjectivity, formalism and concepts. By practicing several techniques, styles, forms and compositions for similar ideas, the artworks become an exercise in creative rigor, as well as an insightful document of subjectivity and an expansive depiction of the content. This body of work began in 2006 in undergrad and continued to be developed up until 2012 when it was formalized in his MFA thesis as an investigation in ‘Analytic Pluralism’. Since then, practicing and developing individual techniques and compositions has continued as well as combining these, culminating in a pluralistically synthesized body of work. Simultaneously since 2012, a third body of work of improvised geometric abstractions, meant to look like home made holograms, began developing the same ideas in a more specific way, while also defining a more personal, alternate, style, technique and voice, as opposed to relying on derivations as in the pluralist exploration.
Born in 1987 in Mexico City, Carlos has made art his career for the past 20 years. Self-taught for the most part since childhood, his dedication for graffiti, fashion and visual culture during adolescence, led him to focus on fine arts in high school. Graduated with a BFA from Cooper Union, a Yale Norfolk Alumni and with an MFA in Painting from Yale University. For the past seven years he has also taught fine arts at the 16 to 25 age range, from the basics to graduate level coursework.
