Vincent Aleksandr Martinez
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
Through mixed-media paintings and works on paper, Vincent investigates what it means to fear contamination when the body, mind, and soul already feel corrupted. Drawing inspiration from dreams, chance, interpersonal power dynamics, and the cyclical nature of high-octane emotions, his work navigates a dizzying oscillation between dominance and submission, restraint and reckless abandon. The boundaries between figure and ground blur as forms emerge and dissolve into their unstable environments. Within these shifting spaces, abstracted human forms engage in pleasures of the flesh, seeking transcendence in depravity and the defilement of their physical forms. The mind becomes a channel in this process, oscillating between its obsessive desire for order and its compulsion toward hedonistic collapse. His subjects, however, propose that these forces are not opposing, rather they exist as intertwined states that constantly fracture and reform in the context of interpersonal relations.
Each work begins with acrylic ink or oil paint poured, dripped, and smeared onto a surface; a primordial fluid from which recognizable forms arise. He is never certain of what will materialize. Instead, he engages in an ongoing confrontation, coaxing shapes into existence while simultaneously resisting them. Body parts, heads, and fragmented figures surface only to dissolve back into the instability that bore them. Materials such as coffee grounds, mineral spirits, and 91% isopropyl alcohol resist layers of pigment, breaking down any illusion of certainty, purity, or resolution. His interest in the emergence of these forms lies not in their potential for actualization, rather in the reconciliation with their volatile nature; their contamination, their contradictions, their shifting states. In this way of working, he surrenders to both the physical forces of reality; gravity, temperature, time, warping surfaces, and the immaterial forces of his psyche. The work becomes a negotiation with uncertainty, a willingness to inhabit the tension between corruption and the impossible desire to be uncontaminated.
Education
2025 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Drawing and Painting, California State University Long Beach - Long Beach, CA
2023 Associate of Arts, Studio Art, El Camino College - Torrance, CA
Solo Exhibitions
2025 Higher Forces, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA
Group Exhibitions
2026 Made in California, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA (forthcoming)
2025 Revelations, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA
Insights, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA
Rip, Tear, Tuck; In Time, With Time, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA
2024 Fruitbody, Max L. Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, CA
2023 South L.A. Is Still Home, Community Coalition, Los Angeles, CA
Annual Juried Student Exhibition, El Camino College, Torrance, CA
Awards
2024 Jamiesson-Pechstein School of Art Endowed Scholarship
Collaborative Projects
2023 Greenhouse of Action, South L.A. Is Not For Sale, Community Coalition, Freedom Festival, Los Angeles, CA
Publications
2023 Myriad Creative Arts Journal, ISSN #1934-3140, El Camino College