ThE BIRTH OF THE CLINIC
SVPER ORDINARY GALLERY
Artist Mauro C. Martinez uses a modern medical model of illness to diagnose the alienation and ongoing social sterility of Western culture. His painting and objects contrast living, breathing personalities desiring life with impersonal processes that never cure them. The West’s growing impersonality contrasts sharply with Martinez’s often breathtaking, virtuosic portraits and monumental figures. Despite the dislocations and subtractions of our time the artist’s commitment to traditional media and strong painterly depiction is a kind of moral victory, a statement of visual conviction rooted in the canon of artistic works in a world reduced to airport signage and Walmart metaphysics. Martinez, in assembling these ironic, visually sumptuous pieces, underscores Emily Dickinson’s universal counsel—“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.”
Exhibited works
