~ALFREDO MARTINEZ . . UNRAVELING REALITIES
‘UNRAVELING REALITIES’ – CURATED BY HASH HALPER and AMY LI
OCT 17-31, 2013
166 MOTT ST – LOWER EAST SIDE, NYC
the show’s curators: HASH HALPER and AMY LI .. an awesome duo.
166 MOTT ST, an alternative art space is located right at the outermost intersection of . . Chinatown meets Little Italy.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ and AMY LI.
WC BEVAN checks out Alfredo’s new work . .
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Iulia Longam Posteritatem (Julia for remote posterity)’.
mixed media, incl coffee and Acrylic paint, paper collage on wood. 31 x 26 in.
($2,500)
I have never seen Alfredo paint a woman’s face, before.
I think it’s amazing. beautiful, radiant.
realistic, poetic, one-of-a-kind.
detail, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Iulia’.
he uses coffee ‘pigment’ to get those darker stains and deep red/brown hues.
the hair, eyes and red lips are – drop dead, great.
damn, the nose is good too. those flaring nostrils, stand off-ish .. and, passionate.
he also looks to have used plenty of gel medium, or maybe just ordinary household paper glue . . the work has an amazing shine to it.
an interesting contrast to the paper collage foundation.
I’ve seen Alfredo paint men, before. he liked that same .. close-up face format, then too.
notably in the ‘convict’ portraits he did when he was in the big house, here in NYC .. serving a two year sentence for art fraud. ca. 2002.
but I didn’t know he could paint, women . . like that.
guns, women. check.
detail, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Iulia’.
that’s where he perfected that hair .. ‘craft’, in prison.
it’s nice, I really like it . . very graphic, and very ‘picturesque’.
detail, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, ‘Iulia’.
trust a forger . to have a lock-down logo, and . . signature.
and one-of-a-kind paper . . he couldn’t get his hands on any art paper in prison. so he learnt to make his own ‘collaged’ paper – from scrap paper, from an old Russian inmate.
in the absence of any art supplies, he also learnt to make color ‘pigments’ from tipping little instant coffee packets into cups of water.
I guess paper glue was available. or did he use flour and water.
something, like that.
this is an interesting group of ‘private’ snips of his, or somebody’s .. life.
it feels a little scary. who has .. your info ?
you can see the edges of the work, which make for a very 3D presence, even in fact a kind of .. ‘shallow’ sculpture. it’s definitely more an ‘object’, than a piece of ‘paper’
from left: JOSHIE ARMSTEAD and MICK LEWIS.
MICK LEWIS is one of Hash’s many brothers, he is a musician, and he leads a band called, THE FINE PRINT.
see: MICK LEWIS & THE FINE PRINT/FACEBOOK
better yet, listen to: MICK LEWIS & THE FINE PRINT, ‘I Thought I heard Your Voice, New York’ – YouTube.
wow. so how, I’m feeling, or what.
JOSHIE ARMSTEAD is a composer, singer, and .. back-up singer.
RAY CHARLES sang her songs, and they co-wrote a few that went to become famous . .
she was also an original .. IKETTE, a back-up singer/dancer for Ike and Tina Turner.
see: JO ARMSTEAD .. WIKI
and listen to this: JO ARMSTEAD, ‘THIS AND THAT’ .. YouTube
RAY. aka The Love Child.
he had done a nice custom paint ‘tag’ . . on his jacket.
The Love Child . . colored chalk on sidewalk.
gorgeous evening light .. all NYC !!
Ray’s friend . . Sidi.
on the right, HASH HALPER . . with ANDREA MESSIER CUOMO.
the opening was over . . the art was good.
and . . all the players were slipping out, out into the early night.
and so, underground NEW YORK CITY . . ‘beats’ on.
R.I.P. LOU REED.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH