Gustavo Martinez
- ABOUT
- BIOGRAPHY
- STATEMENT
- EXHIBITIONS
Gustavo Martinez was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from San Jose State University with a minor in Mexican American Studies. He achieved a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in 2011 and was awarded the Parnassus Teaching with Excellence award. Martinez is passionate about connecting with communities through ceramics and indigenous traditions. He honors Nature and his cultural heritage through indigenous ceremonies and is a member of Kalpulli Tlalteca, People of the Earth Community in El Paso, Texas. Working as a production consultant at a ceramic water filter factory in Guatemala, reminded Gustavo of the importance of caring for water. Martinez traveled to the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania with La Paz International Foundation to build a ceramic kiln in a woman’s pottery village. That same year he experienced the amazing journey of summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro. These experiences have heavily influenced Gustavo’s sculptures and world outlook. Martinez has taught ceramics at higher education institutions in the greater Seattle area, El Paso Museum of Art, and has been part of the summer faculty at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Sitka, Alaska where he has taught ceramics to middle and high school students. Gustavo Martinez currently resides between San Jose, California, El Paso, Texas, and Tacoma, Washington.
As an artist and an individual, I owe so much to ceramics. Discovering an innate ability to create with clay changed my life. Creative research led me to reconnecting to my rich cultural heritage of Mexico. In the process of collaborating with the material of earth I align with my breath to connect with an intuitive creative flow. In that same process discovery of several sides of myself takes place. Creating with clay connects me to an ancient practice and ancestral energy. The completed artwork is essentially an embodiment with an intention. Guardians, Warriors, and Sages are ongoing characters with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic features that I use to express very personal stories which can also be seen as universal experiences. In my current Thunder Beings series, I explore embodiment of the energetic experience of a specific place. The thunder and lightning experience in the Chihuahuan desert is one of a kind. This ancient and unique place displays red, blue, yellow, and white lightning. Extreme weather along with powerful storms and forces of nature have created this landscape. These forces of nature inspired ancestors of this land to create symbols and archetypes to represent the mysterious power and cosmic cycles of nature in relation to human experience on this land. Some of these representations can be seen on rock paintings by ancient peoples that inhabited this region. There’s indescribable forces I’ve witnessed in the Chihuahuan desert in the vicinity of the historic site of Hueco Tanks. These mysterious forces can be described as guardians and ancestral energies that exist all over the landscape. These energy beings choose when to share their presence with visitors. I think of them as guardians that exist within ancient giant boulders, resilient old trees and amongst other flora and fauna of this land. Within them are the unique ones that stand out as thunder beings. ~ Gustavo Martinez, 2023