MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS THE ARTIST JOURNEY
Crossing Art is located at 559 West 23rd Street in Chelsea. The gallery’s primary mission is to use contemporary art to broaden dialogues among cultures and discourses and to be shared with communities not limited to certain locale or audiences. Since its founding in 2008 by New York/Shanghai based art patron and collector Catherine Lee, Crossing Art has exhibited more than one hundred exhibitions and public art projects in New York City. It has worked cooperatively with organizations and artists worldwide to broaden artistic discourse, deepen appreciation, and connect audiences and communities with various cultural origins.
Lydia Duanmu is a distinguished art advisor and curator with a global reach, working with artists, galleries, institutions, and collectors worldwide. She specializes in both Asian and Western contemporary art, and has curated exhibitions in both regions, focusing on bridging the two worlds. A graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing, Lydia has a strong international network of artists and collectors. After serving as Vice Director of New York’s Crossing Art Gallery, she founded her own company, Lydia Duanmu Fine Art. Her passion is discovering and promoting emerging artists through curation, educational activities, and exhibitions.
MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS (NIGERIAN, B. 1986)
Móyòsóré Martins, a self-taught mixed-media artist, uses his art to express his innately curious and spiritual nature. Raised in Lagos, Nigeria by a Brazilian father and a Nigerian mother from Ekiti state, Martins began using a paintbrush and pencil at a young age. He combines his traditional Yoruba cultural roots with a contemporary vision to create artwork that blends figurative, abstract, and narrative elements drawn from his unique life experience, including his journey from Nigeria to his Bronx studio.
Martins’s deeply symbolic artwork frequently features cultural and personal iconography, reflecting his life experience. His paintings are richly textured and use bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materials, and text. The vibrant, heavily layered canvases often include spiritual elements and wishes manifested and fulfilled. In addition to painting, Martins also creates three-dimensional art through using found objects and mixed media. 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 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 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 further pursue his artistic ambitions. Martins’ artwork has been exhibited at the Nassau County Museum (Roslyn, NY), TrafficArts (New York, NY), LongSharp Gallery (Indiannapolis, IN), Path Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Dacia Gallery (New York, NY), Heath Gallery (New York, NY), and Grady Alexis Gallery (New York, NY).
Photographed by Daniella Liguori ©2023
Móyòsóré Martins Bronx Studio, NY 2023
Móyòsóré Martins bridges abstract, figurative, and iconographic symbolism. He expresses the beauty in the figure and the depth of its subject; he obsesses with a cartoon-like character that imbues his personal iconography and that has a deep symbolic meaning. His approach is narrative and realistic in the early works, returning to his childhood memories. The African statue is increasingly present and spiritually meaningful in his work. He is fascinated with contemporary plastic toy statues and collectibles from artists like Kaws, representing everything different in juxtaposition to the traditional Yaruba figures. A seminal work, “Watchman,” resonates; the painting is a study of the Yaruba figure and is interpreted by Martins as the man taking on his destiny, with a nod to his experience while employed as a night watchman in the Bronx—a lasting impression.
Martins expresses the emotion of the characters he deftly paints, the backgrounds layered, manipulated, scratched, and then infused with text. He places himself in the canvas, in the artwork, both in spirit and name, even his birthdate. He scribbles words, mathematical formulas, mantras, and prayers. He visually expresses his internal conversation, which shifts as his world does—as a visual biography. He resists being put in a box. His unique use of materials and story is the cord that ties his work together.
Móyòsóré Martins Bronx Studio, NY 2023 Photographed by Daniella Liguori ©2023
Artist Journey (Dyptich)
2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas
103 x 72 in. (257 x 180 cm) each
103 x 144 in. (257 x 360 cm) total (unstretched)
EXHIBITIONS
2023 Solo Exhibition | Crossing Art | The Artist Journey | New York, NY
2022 Beverly Hills Art Exchange, Group Show | San Francisco, CA
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
Press Links: Forbes 2023
Instagram: @moysoremartins1910
Enu Ebi (Hungry Mouth)
2023
Oil and oil stick on canvas, pigment, and graphite on canvas 72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Raw Thoughts, Studies I, II, III (Triptych) 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas, mounted on board 12 x 16 in. (30 x 40 cm) each
Raw Thoughts, Studies V, 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas mounted on board 12 x 16 in. (30 x 40 cm)
Raw Thoughts, Studies VI, 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas mounted on board 14 x 18 in. (35 x 45 cm)
Raw Thoughts, Studies VII, 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas mounted on board 14 x 18 in. (35 x 45 cm)
Raw Thoughts, Studies IX, 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas mounted on board 14 x 18 in. (35 x 45 cm)
Raw Thoughts, Studies VIII, 2023 Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas
mounted on board 14 x 18 in. (35 x 45 cm)
EGO II
2021
Mixed media on plexiglass (Oil, oil stick, pigments, ink, graphite, and collage)
Painted on both sides
52 x 50 in. (130 x 125 cm)
*Measurement without frame
(Front)
(Back)
The series entitled “Expansion,” reflects Martins’ feelings about his increased exposure and growth in both his internal and external worlds. Each element in the paintings is meaningful. In the painting on the following page, Expansion IV, he presents the man in the purest sense of himself—surrounded by blossoming flowers—all growing and expanding.
2022
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Expansion II
Expansion IV
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
Móyòsóré Martins exhalts the tradition of the Abstract Expressionist 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 EdelmanBroken Limb
2023
Oil and oil stick on canvas, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Expansion IX
2022
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
48 x 60 in. (120 x 150 cm)
Here and Now 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas 99 x 72 in. (250 x 180 cm)
2023
Nothing to Lose 2023
Oil and oil stick on canvas, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
More than Me 2023
Oil and oil stick on canvas, pigment, and graphite on canvas 72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Idé (bondage)
2023
Mixed media on concrete
13 x 6 x 6 in. (32.5 x 15 x 15 cm)
Seen 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Erin Aro (The Morning Laugh) 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas 60 x 48 in. (150 x 120 cm)
“Seeing is believing. As an artist I have so many people who look to me. Not many are privileged to the life I have. Even back home I was always privileged. I never took that for granted. I saw poverty. People are really suffering. I have always been very grateful. All my achievements are for us all. Everyone is watching me. Sometimes it feels like a lot. Being an artist plays the added expectation for success, for fulfilling the path, for taking the journey.”
—Moyosore Martins
Vessel I 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, graphite, and glaze on clay
13 x 11 in. (32.5 x 27.5 cm)
Vessel II
2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, graphite, and glaze on clay
8 x 7 in. (32 x 150 cm)
Vessel III and IV
Oil, oil stick, pigment, graphite, and glaze on clay
6 x 5 in. (15 x 12.5 cm)
Untitled 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
