Song Of The MuseMiguel Martinez shares the secret vanities and exalted strengths of the women he paints.
Angel, Carmen, Anna Maria, Florencita, Eva, Tina, Eva Maria, Isabella, Mariela, Delorita—the poetry of women flow from the brush of master painter Miguel Martinez like the songs of a bard. Martinez has revealed in canvas after canvas the secret vanities and exalted strengths of the women of the world— secrets and strengths reserved for a lover's intimacy or, as with Martinez, a divination from the artist's hand. Like the seduction of fine wine and the beauty of dusk, the women he has painted over the last quarter-century are alluring and irresistible and exquisite. As they move along the edge of lightness and dark, above all else, they endure.
"Where else will you find something as strong as a woman?" Martinez asks. "Her ever changing emotions are right out there on her face for the whole world to see."
Martinez does not necessarily create the women he paints from his imagination. He draws from the sea of life around him, capturing the woman passing the adobe wall, the woman whispering to her friend, the woman following the road to Abiquiu. He paints the women gathering in autumn or pausing on the mesa, women sleeping or dancing or dreaming. They catch in his glance, reappear in his mind's eye and manifest in the weave of his canvas.
While Martinez has painted the faces of women consistently throughout his career it would be inappropriate to consider the subjects in his paintings 'Martinez women.' They exist, as all good poetry does, beyond the master's touch. The girls of Galicia, the women by the sea, the women in friendship, in red, in winter all betray their eternities in a fleeting moment. Their gestures express life's mysteries as they lower a translucent fan in invitation, encourage the wind to wrap a delicate lace across an exquisite cheek or full red lip. They beckon and romance and compel and becalm. And, as they slowly overwhelm the viewer's senses, they begin to reveal their secrets.
"You know her story by the expression she wears," explains Martinez. "These women are concerned with family life, their children, their sisters, friends...they also dream of people that at one time crossed their paths...."
Whether saints or seductresses, mothers or lovers, the women in the Martinez ocuvre are both iconic and accessible. The allure of his work is also in his remarkable ability to create and include elements that are at once mundane and imbued with meaning. A simple ivory earring, the slender weave of a shawl, an open window, leaves on silk or the sage bloom of a New Mexican valley all seem to spring from the psyche of his female subjects. When Martinez adds a golden aspen or the swirl of an indigo veil to the painting it appears as if his subject desires it to be so. These subtleties are touchstones, not to the world beyond, but to a woman's internal narrative. Martinez understands that these are the things that, in the end, defe character and depth and the gentle succor of life—the simple, personal talismans.
"Once you've known and loved something or someone," Martinez reveals, "it becomes a part of you no matter what happens externally."
It is difficult to imagine Martinez without the women he paints. This singular focus in his art has served him well through the years and continues to bring him acclaim and new collectors. It also provides him with a departure point each time he confronts a new canvas. And it is through these confrontations that, despite the recitation, Martinez constantly proves his mettle. His ability to champion his subject repeatedly by bringing a fresh and often elegant revelation to each piece is truly the tidemark of a master. Just as Monet had his steeples and haystacks, Martinez gives the world beautiful women.
Yet, beyond his sense of color or narrative or texture, Martinez exhibits the masterstroke. Examining a Martinez canvas or work on paper exposes a surety and confidence in each connection the artist makes with his surface. No movement is wasted, no frivolity occurs. Martinez is absolute in every mark he makes. This mastery enables him to invoke a subjective, emotional epiphany in all his collectors and admirers.
"If you do not experience emotions you miss the essence of life," Martinez insists. "I want people to live when they look at my paintings. I want them to experience emotion. Every painting conveys a message unique to my experience and carries with it a part of my soul."
Despite his craft with the canvas, Martinez perhaps would have experienced a rockier rise to success had it not been for the creative environs of Taos. Born a native son to Taos parents, Martinez spent his youth within an art community of northern New Mexico burgeoning in the late 20th century.
Cash flush and culture conscious, Taos was an ideal environment for nurturing young prodigies with promise. Exposure to art at an early age was prerequisite and Martinez, with a natural edge for the creative life, took advantage of the resources made available to him. In addition to his studies with prominent New Mexican artists he attributes the influences of Rivera, Zuniga, Tamayo, Picasso and Modigliani to his lust for the picture conjurer's trade. He developed his skill and expertise through steadfast labor and perseverance. He examined the craft of past masters and learned from their talents while exploring and honing his own sense of composition, line and space.
But like all Taos artists, it is the intrinsic nature of the New Mexican light that overpowers the Martinez palette. "The colors in my work have always been inspired by my surroundings," Martinez explains, "the changing seasons, morning, evening, night, that time of day when the light strikes an adobe wall and casts a beautiful long shadow across the rich brown earth...."
Martinez spent his formative years exploring many avenues for his creative expression. But it was his discovery of women—their mysteries and illusions, their seductions and provocations, their powers and their compassion—that has come to mark his true ascension to artistic distinction.
"The women have changed as time has passed, and I have changed as well," Martinez confides. "In my travels around the world the women I have encountered have found their way into my paintings. Each face I paint, to me, has a different identity.
But I feel that from the beginning they have all shared common bonds—their values, their character—things almost forgotten in our day. These women are upright, strong yet gentle, and proud of who they are. They have nothing to hide."
It is not surprising that Martinez has continued to answer the call of his subject throughout the years. As one gazes upon the eyes and face and countenance of a woman inhabiting a Miguel Martinez canvas, a realization brightens and an enchantment ensues. And, at last, an understanding takes hold. It is one that every artist already knows—that the song of the muse is sweet, her presence a joy and her gentle bidding inescapable.