Móyòsóré Martins Art 2022

MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS 2022

MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS

Photo: Daniella Liguori

2022

Móyòsóré Martins, 2022 Bronx, NY

Móyòsóré Martins exhalts the tradition of the Abstract Expres sionist painters—the beginning. Figurative and conceptualist elements then take the stage. Hatching, hard-handed distress brings the work together in harmony and depth—Móyòsóré’s own total.

— Asher Edelman

Móyòsóró Martins’ Bronx Studio

MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS (NIGERIAN, B. 1986)

Móyòsóré Martins is a self-taught mixed-media artist. Raised in Lagos, Nigeria by a Brazilian father and a Nigerian mother from Ekiti state, Martins adopted a paintbrush and pencil at a young age as instruments to express his innately curious and spiritual nature. Through his work, Martins blends his traditional Yoruba cultural roots with his contemporary vision of art.

Martins’s artwork combines figurative, abstract, and narrative elements drawn from his unique life experience and journey from Nigeria to his large Bronx studio. His work is deeply symbolic and frequently features cultural and personal iconography. Martins’s richly textured paintings feature bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materi als, and text. The vibrant, heavily layered canvases are interspersed with spiritual elements and wishes manifested and fulfilled. Martins also works in three-dimensional form with clay sculpture. As Martins describes:

My artwork is intentionally raw. I like to use a lot of different materials and have rough-cut edges on the canvas. The paintings are textured with scratches, scribbles, and mud-like paint, as well as clay, liquid plastic, oil sticks, chunky layers of oil paint. I layer the back ground and then deconstruct them, which gives the feeling of wear and tear on the canvas. No painting is alike as each has symbolic patterns and encrypted messages hidden within it. I want to merge the vision with the given and the new world that I live in now. The word “Why?” is seen in a lot of the work because it leaves you asking the same question.

Forbidden by his father to create or study art, Martins spent his college years in Ghana and the Ivory Coast studying computer science. He immigrated to New York City in 2015 to fur ther pursue his artistic ambitions. Martins’s artwork has been exhibited most recently at the Nassau County Museum (Roslyn, NY), Path Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), TrafficArts (New York, NY), Dacia Gallery (New York, NY), Heath Gallery (New York, NY), and Grady Alexis Gallery (New York, NY).

EXHIBITIONS

2022 Art Miami, Long-Sharp Gallery

2022 Solo Exhibition: Long-Sharp Gallery | Indiannapolis, ID

2022 Butter | Indiannapolis, ID

2021 Nassau County Museum, Songs Without Words: The Art of Music | Roslyn, NY

2021 Path Gallery | Los Angeles, CA

2021 Long-Sharp Gallery/ Conrad Indianapolis, Featured Artist

2021 TrafficArts | New York, NY

2019 Dacia Gallery, Holiday Group Exhibition | New York, NY

2018 Heath Gallery | New York, NY

2017 Grady Alexis Gallery, Art United Presents: Radical Resistance to Xenophobia | New York, NY

PUBLICATIONS

Forbes—Artist Feature, 2021

Asher Gottesman Podcast, Apple

Móyòsóré Martins Shows up to Paint

Office Magazine

Móyòsóré Martins, Exploring Nostalgia

Portray Magazine—Artist Feature

ART Daily

Móyòsóré Martins opens Exhibition a Path Galleries

Forbes—Artist Feature 2019

Asiri Magazine

Móyòsóré Martins, Creating Cultural Tradition Spiritual Pathways

Photo: Bowen Fernie © 2021

Moyosore Martins, 2021 Harlem, NY

“I made this painting after my first solo exhibition in Los Angeles last fall. I was overly tired, exhausted, and drained. I put all my emotion in this work. I had just gotten a new studio in the Bronx—the first time I had a real studio, so I had big expectations. Then nothing came. My brain was fuzzy and out of focus. Coffee didn’t help. I fasted for a few days, cut out alcohol to get deeper clarity. I was having a total artist block. It was the first time ever and I had to work through it.

In this painting I worked primarily with layers of oil paint, pigments and charcoal on canvas.

I use a lot of personal iconography, symbols and messages in my work. For me, the eyes and the eyeballs are symbolic that my work is being seen. The figure in the middle is me— with a sense of clarity. The mouth behind the face is people talking about me.”

Artist Block

2022

Oil, oil stick, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas 70 x 70 in. (175 x 175 cm)

Detail from Artist Block 2022

“This painting represents a “blissful realization.” The inspiration behind it is when one is wanting so many things and trying to choose which is the most important, kind of like an obsession of “want.” Putting too much effort on one thing—this is an evocation of the bliss when all the pieces come together. Finally, when all the things you are working for all come together— and this is “As it Should Be. The piece also expresses the joyful explosive freedom in that moment. And, celebrating the universal power of women around me.”

As It Should Be 2022

Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas

A Polyptych 48 x 60 in. (120 x 150 cm)

Total: 96 x 120 (240 x 300 cm)

“This painting represents the feeling of craving and being obsessed. Obsessed with making ends meet. The ability to make my dreams a reality—and then still craving more.”

“In the painting, I’m more prominent in size than the little man. At any state you get to, there’s always someone bigger or trying to be better. It teaches you to be humble. The spaceship is a contemplation of what’s beyond the current life. The house is my selfconscience. Burning, growing out of my comfort zone, hunger, anger, not comfortable, can’t sleep in the burning house. Yearning for life more than what it is.”

Beyond Here 2019

Oil on Canvas 80 x 60 in. (200 x 150 cm)

“I made this painting when I returned to NY from my exhibition in Los Angeles. I had just gotten a new studio in the Bronx. I left all of my African artifacts at the exhibit in LA, which are my protection, my grounding. I felt like I was stripped away. The painting reflects my inner frustration, my feeling of emptiness, and then a creative block. I was feeling a bit depressed. I was processing and coming to terms with myself— that I wasn’t feeling in control. The not knowing, and, that trust is a dangerous thing. How relationships are bigger than currency. The man in the middle of the painting is like my subconscious— I’m constantly asking God for help, for money, and forgiveness. I always say thank you for the things I don’t even have. This is me coming out of my comfort-zone—leaving my house and going to the studio and getting back in control again. I needed to go through the process.”

Detail of Crumble

“Gbe Mi, means “carry me” in Yoruba. This is a study of a classic Yoruba artifact, a subject that I use extensively in my paintings. This artifact has a female with a head tie or hat on with pointy breasts sitting down with a pot in hand and a child on her back. Illustrated with exaggerated strokes, which I used to create a feeling of dimensionality.

I used simple colors contrasting the artifact in red and the background in blue. The colors have spiritual meaning to me. I wanted the imagination to drift to various places and shapes with my brush strokes and with patterns and messages. The power of the object is in its simplicity.”

Gbe Mi 2019 Oil on canvas 65 x 50 in. (165 x 127 cm)

“This painting is about the different parts of my journey, my growth, the ob stacles, the pitfalls, as well as the exposure, and the lessons and understanding of one’s worth. When you sit and think about it. You’re the only one who can evaluate yourself and stay true to yourself. What you see in the mirror is what you truly are but at the same time what you see in the mirror could be merely something that you think you are. Both can be very heavy sometimes.”

Heavy Sometimes 2021

on canvas 77 x 84 in. (192.5 x 210 cm)

of Heavy Sometimes 2021

Igba Orin (Sounds of Time), 2021, Diptych , Oil on canvas, 60 x 96 in. (150 x 240 cm)

The child becomes the man. It is customary the role of the musi cian that plays in the neighborhood passes on the tradition in the family. This is a childhood memory for Móyòsóré.

This work was featured in an exhibition entitled The Art of Music at the Nassau County Museum of Art in 2021-22.

Igba Orin (Sounds of Time embraces the imagination in its celebration of Martins’ Nigerian roots and cultures.

The diptych reflects the omnipresence of music, not on in Nigeria, but also in Martins’ village. There, Sundays are marked with an especially joyful and celebratory atmosphere. In honoring tradition, Martins’ diptych features two imaginary people: a youth and an elder facing each other. Both individuals hold talking drums, or gun-gun drums, which are played not only a part of celebrations, but also played during oral storytelling and the sharing of proverbs. Martins ties tradition to the concept of time. The youth looks to the elder as a model of wisdom. As Martins explains, it takes time for the individual to pay their dues and grow in maturity and wisdom.

Throughout the canvas, Martins has embedded encrypted text among his blend of loose gestural strokes, thick impasto, scratches, and patches of exposed canvas. These texts are part of the dreamscape rendered in paint that invite the view to look more closely and study the work in front of them.

Details of left left side canvas Igba Orin (Sounds of Time)

As the self-taught mixed media artist himself explains:

“My artwork is intentionally raw. I like to use a lot of different materials and have rough-cut edges on the canvas. The paintings are textured with scratches, scribbles, and mud-like paint, as well as clay, liquid plastic, oil sticks, chunky layers of oil paint. I layer the background and then deconstruct them, which gives the feeling of wear and tear on the canvas. No painting is alike as each has symbolic patterns and encrypted messages hidden within them. I want to merge the vision with the given and to the new world that I live in now. The word “Why?” is seen in a lot of the work because it leaves you asking the same question”

—Jen Haller, Laura Lynch, Nassau Count Museum

Details of right side canvas Igba Orin (Sounds of Time)

“Life is just a market. This painting is about how people don’t think of their “end time.” And they don’t prepare for it because we are so busy chas ing dreams and creating memories. We are so in denial that we don’t want to plan for the end-time. Before we get to that other side, the way we leave our memories matters a lot. What people think of our memory means something. My dad was old when he had me. I grew up acting like an old man. When he died, I saw so many things, how he didn’t plan for many things and took so many things for granted. We need to plan for that exit. God will ask you, what was your impact, and you want to bring this to the other side with you. But we treat it with vanity. In the end, it’s simple. It’s one way in and one way out. Life is just a market.”

Oja Ale II (The Market)

oil stick on canvas

(Female)

2022 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in. (100 x 75 cm)

“Seen is a series of works I created about being seen and my own seeing. This is the theme of this exhibition. It represents my feelings about people’s expectations. The art world, fellow artists, and the demand for the work are working in countries I’ve never been to. There’s sometimes frustration and a sense of my own ego in juxtaposition to expectations. A feeling of being put in a box—regarding what the work should be.

The brush strokes feel aggressive and fast. The mouths on the back represent talking back. Everyone has things to say. Eyes are about seeing and the exposure to being seen. The stripes on the characters’ clothes, which I often reference in my work, represent my home, where I come from, and 1986 is the year I was born.”

Seen (Male) 2022 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in. (100 x 75 cm)

“This painting is about me seeing the world around me. About me opening my eyes. I always saysee the world around you and tell me who you are. This painting was inspired by an experience I had in LA where I realized there was no limit to the dream. It changed how I viewed myself.”

See the World Around You 2022

Oil, oil stick, acrylic, pigment, pigmented wax 78 x 60 in (195 x 150 cm)

If?

“This painting is about embracing change and dis comfort and knowing there is no going back; it is the commitment to the way forward. When you view the painting, you see the interlocking progressional chain. Being an artist comes with self-doubt, such as when trying to embrace new techniques and new influenc es. Everything comes with a little bit of struggle and doubt. When you learn that life is all about propel ling forward, you will always be happy when a new change comes your way. You have to try to push aside the doubts that come in between. It’s also about the opportunities, like “what if” I did this, or this or that happened. “What If?”

I’ve been asked why they have their eyes are down cast. For me, they don’t need to use their eyes be cause they see with their minds, their thoughts, and their premonitions. It’s about “all-seeing” in a spiritual way.”

What If? 2022 Painting in progress Bronx Studio, New York

Untitled 2022

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas

Left canvas: 72 x 63 in. (180 x 160 cm)

Center canvas: 72 x 146 in. (180 x 370 cm)

Right canvas: 72 x 171 in. (180 x 430 cm)

Total size: 72 x 380 in. (180 x 960 cm)

Amin 2022

stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 72 x 60 in. (180

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 72 x 72 in. (180 x 180 cm)

HERE NOW 2022

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 99 x 72 in. (250 x 180 cm)

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 60 x 72 in. (150 x 180 cm)

Expansion III 2022

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 48 x 72 in. (120 x 180 cm) each 96 X 72 in. (240 x 180 cm) total

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 48 x 72 in. (120 x 180 cm) each 96 x 72 in. (240 x 180 cm) total

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 48 x 60 in. (120 x 150 cm) each 96 x 60 in. (240 x 150 cm) total

oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 72

95

(180

Expansion IX 2022

Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 48 x 60 in. (120 x 150 cm)

Móyòsóré Martins

REPRESENTED BY

TRAFFICARTS

To inquire about works available or make an appointment: Telephone: +1 212 734 0041 Email: info@traffic-nyc.com www.traffic-nyc.com/artists/moyosore

TRAFFICARTS