Marjorie Barrick Museum Podcast

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program. The following is special programming aired in collaboration with the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the campus of UNLV, and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and More, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Deanne Sole 0:22
Hello there, and welcome to the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art radio show. My name is Deanne, and I am here with Brian Martinez. He is a Las Vegas artist who is absolutely fabulous. He has an installation of a painting in our window gallery at the moment. It's called Floreo, so I am hoping to talk to him about that piece, and just to talk to him about his career, his practice, and everything that he has been doing as a painter and will soon do as a painter. All right, Brian.

Brian Martinez 0:56
Hello. How's it going? I'm glad to be here.

Deanne Sole 0:59
Awesome. I'm really glad you agreed to come in. I was, I was happy when you said, yes. Okay, well, should we start at the beginning? Can you, can you talk about the process of becoming an artist? What? What did that decision look like, and how did you reach it?

Brian Martinez 1:15
I would say that process started really young for me. Constant visits to the library with my mom. Started off with me wanting to be an author, and then throughout elementary I just had this fascination, like I want to be an author. At some point in middle school, I was introduced to graffiti and then pretty much visual art, so that just it overcame any kind of writing. I think it's writing still became part of it, but the visual art and the process of manipulating color, manipulating form, I was obsessed. And then it just led from there. At some point at the end of middle school, we started getting asked the questions of what, what do you want to do when you grow up? And the only thing I could think of was art, like they had us do a three-part, like, you know, numbered list. And I was like, one, two, three, I had art at one, and then I was, I was stumped on two and three, so I just told myself, well, just no, no pressure, just keep the list like this, and then if something pops up, we know we'll adjust that list. And to this day, that list has never been adjusted. It's just art one and then just, yeah.

Deanne Sole 2:30
Fantastic. It's interesting that you say graffiti, because the artist Gabriella Rodriguez, who had work in the Window Gallery before you, that was one of the things that she said about her artistic genesis as well: that she remembered walking along the street with her parents when she was little, and she would see some pop of graffiti, and that made her think, yeah, I'd like to do something like that too. And and yet, both of your your paintings both look quite different. So I'm fascinated that you've both come from, like, not exactly the same place, but there's been a similar spark way back there, and it's taken you in two different, different directions.

Brian Martinez 3:12
I think it's how we're exposed, a lot of our communities. It's, I don't know that's just our exposure to art is this expression, that's like street expression, considered vandalism. But like my parents, I don't know. I don't know to this day, if they've been to an art museum, I probably should take them. But yeah, there's different worries than to just go see art sometimes. And I think with how easily you can see graffiti in the streets, obviously there's a lot that's like, not really that good, but then there's a few that's like, creative, even just, has a few extra colors and more thought into it. And those are always the ones that captured me.

Deanne Sole 3:50
Yeah, like, like, art on the whole I guess. I mean, whether you're looking at graffiti or whether you're looking at art in a museum or a galleries or whatever, you know, you're going to see a lot of things that don't move you. And then every now and again, you go, Oh yes, ah, that's it. Yeah, I need that.

Brian Martinez 4:06
I remember there was a not to just keep on the subject, but there was a E that that I got obsessed with. It was from a kid named Mikey. He had been new to the grade, and the way he did his E, I remember being obsessed with, like, how did you do that? Where did you get this? Where did you figure this, this specific way to do this E, out? And I can't even visualize it right now, but those little things were just so interesting to me. And since we're using the alphabet and text and then just, you know, manipulate, making it into our, forming our expression. So, yeah, little things like that would capture me. And I still remember that E like, I can visualize it right now.

Deanne Sole
What did it ... what did it look like?

Brian Martinez
I wish I could just draw a picture.

Deanne Sole
It's a bit hard on radio

Brian Martinez 4:55
Yeah, is. It's in graffiti. It's like bombing, which is more of like a quick style, but, yeah, I'll probably have to end up drawing it at some point, and I'll show you what the E looked like. But just so much form, so much ... it was very dynamic.

Deanne Sole 5:11
Did you take any of his style into your own work? I mean, I know it's been a long time since you you would have been looking at that E.

Brian Martinez 5:19
For sure, in graffiti, it would be like, it just, I think in graffiti, there's a lot of like, what's considered biting, which is you take, but I think now, where I'm at as an artist, everything influences you, and you take from every aspect of art, right? Everyone making art in the past, like, originality is such a, like, I'm just one part of a bunch of things that I've taken, so like that E isn't in my work now, but when at that point I was using that E, it became my like, default E, whenever I would do a name or something, it was just so creative. I was like, I'm gonna use it.

Deanne Sole 5:57
I love it. Yeah, I love it. I love creative stealing.

Brian Martinez 6:02
Steal like an Artist, like Austin.

Deanne Sole 6:04
Steal like an artist, exactly. That's that's so different from like copying. You know, it's not the same as copying something. It's taking it and sort of absorbing it and keeping it and making it all ...

Brian Martinez 6:16
It all filters to you different. I'm pretty sure if I draw it now, it probably wasn't even the same as how it was, but in my memory, that's how I remember it. So like, yeah, whatever you take it'll filter different. Now, if you don't filter it, then it's a little more copying.

Deanne Sole 6:30
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what are some of your other influences?

Brian Martinez 6:35
So graffiti started it, it was like Southern California graffiti scene, but then at some point, because I was still really into writing, and my writing teacher, we just have constant conversation, because she enjoyed my writing, and all that, but she also saw that I did graffiti, and one day it was just like, hey, like, if you keep doing this, it might lead you down a bad path, and I was a little stubborn, but I was okay, well, what else is there? Like, I don't know anything else. I just know graffiti. Everything I look at is graffiti, and it was specifically graffiti in Southern California, like, a lot of crews and stuff out of there. So I think I started diving deeper into what else is there? Like, maybe, like, what gallery is representing these artists? And then, okay, What connection does at that point there was this gallery called Known. And then Known led me to Thinkspace Art Gallery, and Thinkspace had a really thorough website that had, like, all their artists, every piece of art. And so I started digesting that. And then it became like, I think they called it, like, neo-pop art, surrealism, something like that. And then so then it switched to that, and then I started obsessing with that. And then it led me more to, I think in my freshman year of high school, I was like, Well, let me try portraits. I guess I'll start with portraits, and I still have that page. Think I was in my Spanish class at a desk, and it's like just the page of the worst portraits you ever is, but it's the beginning of where I'm at now. So led more to visual art, stepped away from text and letters and everything, it became more that. And then it just became more focused on on portraiture.

Deanne Sole 8:26
I remember quite a lot of seeing quite a lot of faces. When I look at pictures of your older work too, like the show that you had in 2018 there are some pictures online of you standing in front of the paintings, and I think most of them have a face in them, or multiple faces. And that show that you did at scrambled eggs, was it just before the pan... or after the pandemic? 2021, or 2022 Yeah, because you did that interview with, with, with them that went on Couch in the Desert, that was 22 so it must, yeah, you're right. It must have been 21 but I'm, am I right? I remember seeing a lot of faces in there as well, and bodies.

Brian Martinez 9:07
Ever since that moment when I kind of switched over, portraits have a grasp, like I've, I try to have a range too, and I know landscape and all this other stuff. But I just love portraits. Something about the face, and just like this representation of you, like it's supposed to, in the environment, it's like who you are. And just so much things to think about. I think with portraits. And I don't know if it's my comfort zone, sometimes I try to push myself out of it, and then I, when ideas come to me, they come in like a portrait format. Go back, portraits, yeah, here I am again. I mean portraits.

Deanne Sole 9:49
That makes me think of Floreo, of the shaped painting in the Window Gallery, that the human figure in there is actually behind a huge bunch of flowers. Flowers, but there's still a face in there. The vase holding the flowers itself, it's got a face on it. Yeah, so you managed to get a face even, even though you've covered your person up.

Brian Martinez 10:10
It's one of those things where I tried really hard to push myself, like, come on, come on. Let's move away from just a face and just a forward-facing face and yeah, it just becomes like the face is in there, but, you know, hidden behind a bouquet of flowers or something like that. It's buried in there. But yeah, I can't seem to shake it. I'm sure it's some psychological thing.

Deanne Sole 10:37
I mean, all all artists have that, I guess, you know, you have something that that keeps dragging you back. Do you think that? Because I'm again, thinking back to that scrambled eggs show, and I think Manny told me at that point that you were interested in bodies boxing, that you were thinking about the movement of arms. Am I remembering that right?

Brian Martinez 10:56
Yeah, when I started to delve more into well, post-graduation, had like, three months of like, what am I gonna do with my life? And then it's just through my creation, I'm like, well, where, where am I? And is, like, Lucha Libre and boxing, these two aspects of myself that later through writing and through just a moment of in my process, it was, Lucha Libre is almost this outside extrinsic part of me, and boxing is an intrinsic part of me, because it was, I'm an only child, and so my parents put me in boxing to defend myself, to be able to defend myself. So boxing feels like these moments that I had with my dad, these moments of learning that was like, really fun, and it felt, it feels more of this lived experience, while the Lucha Libre aspect and the mask helped me think extrinsically, while still kind of in an intrinsic state. So yeah, I was, I was trying to do the boxing and the figures to try to almost push myself out a little bit.

Deanne Sole 12:01
That's what I was wondering if it was a way away from the faces, but you still have, the face is still attached to what you're doing, but it's not

Brian Martinez 12:08
about and I was doing a lot of, I was basically just doing a lot of form, yeah, but then I would, you know, there would be a fight, and I would see it really, do you know, the formed face, the fighter got all beat up, and that would interest me. And then I'm like, it's the portrait, but they just allowed themselves to suffer so much, and now it's all morphed either a black guy or something like this, and then, so then that would interest me in boxing. But it's also just, there's so many themes that you and you kind of like the themes that went that way felt more, I don't know, violent, all this stuff. Sometimes it's like, does that? Is that what the world needs more? Yeah, more of thinking of that or anything,

Deanne Sole 12:46
yeah, yeah. I mean, I suppose boxing just, see my head's going back to the face again, I suppose that has the potential to permanently change the face as well. I mean, I like

Brian Martinez 12:57
fighter's nose exactly. I think from the time I started boxing, I think my nose got wider a little bit from getting punched and stuff. So yeah, either faces change so much. Their ears get cauliflower. They get scar tissue on their eyebrows. Some get, like, cut lips, because they'll get their lip cut so bad and it'll get sewn back bad, broken noses that don't get put back properly, so then they're like, all weird, but I kind of like that. It's like, you they're changing, but that's their dream, and then that's their, you know. So their dream morphs them physically, yeah, so,

Deanne Sole 13:33
yeah, well, on the subject of dreams, what? What about your dreams? I, I was looking through some interviews with you before we came on air, and I came across an interview where you you, I think, I think it was with Clark County, or it might have been in a blurb for a show or something like that, the one where you talk about wanting to do a show every year up until the age of 30. I mean was, was that a way of helping your dream of being a painter to manifest itself, because that really sounds like an ambitious way of making yourself work hard.

Brian Martinez 14:08
Yeah, it's just that I don't know how to do this. I mean, I had started interning with Joseph Watson at 16. I was a junior in high school, so that was a start. And then, you know, I get into the gallery space, I'm able to attend First Fridays, see how people do things. I was still, actually to go back. I was actually still very, like, had my eye on every artist I would show at Thinkspace and all that. And I would constantly see solo shows, and then I would go on their website and see, like, you could see all the things that sold. And I would see a solo show, and I see everything sold. And then I'm like, why are people telling me you can't make money? I see that I'm going on this website, and then all the this art is just sold, like, and then I would add everything up, like, $40,000 worth of pieces. And so. I just kept seeing solo show, solo show, solo show, and I couldn't, I was like, Well, how am I gonna figure this out from myself? And I took my first, like, trip away from home to Yosemite with some friends. And I think in a moment outside, you know, being far away from home, like, I just had this moment where, like, well, what if I have a solo I mean, these artists are having solos, and they're successful. So what if I just had a solo show every single year of my 20s? Like, not party, not and be like, I want to do this and that. What if I just had a solo show every year? Like, there's no way that I come out of my 30, like, turn 30 and not be a good artist, right? And not have somewhere else, like, in my head, I was like, this seems like, okay. Like, I'll, yeah, it's a game plan, yeah, if, if somehow I come out of 30 and I didn't become like, some like, it would be weird, right? Yeah, I feel like, if I had, if I had to do it, so,

Deanne Sole 15:56
yeah, it would maybe be a sign that it wasn't the thing, after all. But if you do it, it's really going to show you that it is. Yeah, sounds a little bit trite, but so what? How did you start doing that? Because it's really easy to say, I want to show. I'm going to have a show, but it's much harder to get that space and to get the work that goes into that space.

Brian Martinez 16:16
Yeah, I think that's where I already had a few blessings, which I was already working at the Joseph Watson collection because I had been interning there from when I was a junior in high school. On Wednesdays, we wouldn't go to school and we'd go intern somewhere out in the world. And my first semester, I did like a graphic design place because I thought I wanted to do graphic design. I did don't want to do graphic design. No, they I would try to get creative. And they were like, oh yeah. They were like, just stick to the brave so then my art teacher was like, oh, there's this really good painter downtown. Go to Joseph. And then, yeah, he gave me an interview. Then we started off those Wednesdays. So when I got to the point where I had that goal, I had already been working with Joseph for three years. So asking him, like, Hey, you, you know, I've seen you put on shows in your space. Would it be cool if I put on a show in your space? You know, just give me a certain amount of time. I'll make sure I don't disappoint as much as I can. I think I had also already done an apprentice series, small three piece exhibit, exhibition. So yeah, then it was just like, Okay, put on a show. And then I think the first one, I don't even remember how I figured it like, how to I just was like, Okay, I guess I gotta make a certain amount of works. And just just threw myself off the ledge, like, let's see what happens.

Deanne Sole 17:40
Does it help to have that deadline, that knowledge that, well, by this date, I need work otherwise, yeah, I've told everybody,

Brian Martinez 17:47
yes, yeah, deadlines probably the most important thing, or else, you're just floating for a long time. And I could float like, if I don't have a deadline, sometimes with commissions, like, it's like, oh, man, it's been nine months. I should probably get this commission. But yeah, so if you ever commission artists, give them a deadline?

Deanne Sole 18:07
Yes, No, I totally Yes. Don't just say, well, I want it sometime in the future. Whatever feels good for you. It's, it's not kindness, even though

Brian Martinez 18:16
it can feel like, it's almost like you ruminate more and then, yeah, yeah.

Deanne Sole 18:21
You start second guessing yourself. You do it, and then you you wait, and you wait, and then you start hating it, or so, I don't know if it's it's like that with you, but you, you look at it after three months, and you go, Oh, now, now, I want to tear it down.

Brian Martinez 18:34
Yeah, change everything, yeah. Just the deadline allows the follow through, like it's okay. You, you already have the idea. Just follow through. So, yeah, it's just been a lot of follow through.

Deanne Sole 18:46
Yeah, that's awesome. And what was, how was the reaction to that first show was that so, it's

Brian Martinez 18:53
so, yeah, it's so long I have a I don't think I have bad memory. I just constantly am looking forward so much that I don't take time to appreciate backwards like the past. So sometimes it's not so much that I don't remember, because I remember the day. I remember all my friends and family coming out. I remember the paintings. I remember like the ones that I liked, the ones I didn't like.

Deanne Sole 19:17
Do you Do you ever paint over the ones you don't like. They become material.

Brian Martinez 19:22
I haven't painted over too many things. I try to let them out into the world as soon as sometimes I'm just like, somebody take this. I don't like looking at them after as much like my house doesn't have as much of my own work.

Deanne Sole 19:39
But yeah, do you think it's helped you, helped you to evolve this constant process of generating work and then going on to the next I mean, you, you say you don't tend to linger over the paintings after you've painted them and shown them, but I imagine there's still things from them that you've learned that stay in you.

Brian Martinez 19:58
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of little things well, each one you learn. And I think one thing I had thought about was that each time, each exhibition, the work that I put forward, it's like, this is as good as I am right now. Like, that's one thing I noticed was that I would push myself, and then there would be at least one painting where I'm like, that's probably as I am right now. I am not better or worse. That's like as much skill that I know or as much of my talent that I am able to access at the moment. And so each one just expanded the limitation a little bit more, a little bit more, I would say, where I'm at right now, even with Floreo and Cosmic Chicano, it's like, if I look back to that first show, like, if I, if I went back and critiqued all my work, it was like, Oh no, what did you put out into the world? Like this?

Deanne Sole 20:53
Yeah, but there again. I mean, that feels like a really good the fact that you don't, you don't even have such a sharp memory of that first show anymore, and you are where you are right now, which is fabulous. Is, I suppose, a good to me anyway, a good lesson, and just put it out there, because 10 years from now, you're going to be somewhere else, and you're not still going to be thinking back. And you know, anyway, you mentioned Cosmic Chicano. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Brian Martinez 21:19
Yeah, Cosmic Chicano is my current expression. And I would honestly like Floreo was, was made in that time period the installation here at UNLV. So it feels like I could, like, it feels like part of Cosmic Chicano to me, because it's, it's my expression right now. And it was really cool to have that opportunity to do the, you know, the show

Deanne Sole 21:43
And where, what is Cosmic Chicano, it's an exhibition as well.

Brian Martinez 21:48
Yes, Nuwu Art Gallery and Community Center in partnership with Indigenous AF and scrambled eggs, our collective, art collective that I'm part of, we're all merging together to put the solo show I'm working on right now at 28 so this is my eighth one. Yeah, yeah, but Cosmic Chicano came from moving away from the goal at 26 post graduation, a teacher had a one on one, almost similar to the English one I know that I'm thinking about it. The writing teacher who told me to move away from graffiti, professor was new of the goal. Thought, well, if you keep going with this goal, it's almost gonna be a limitation. And think similarly with me with graffiti, I was a little stubborn. I'm like, Well, I don't want to quit. Quitting feels wrong, but slowly set in, and it's when I, you know, being in the studio, the stubbornness wasn't there at one moment, and I realized what they were saying, and that if I kept putting a solo show and forcing it out, it would really limit that possibility, whereas if I let it kind of, or it's just, you know, I had just graduated. All I've known up until 26 was school, school, school, semester, semester, semester, semester. So just let myself live a little bit. Just live, do things, express without that, like looming solo show, but like in the back, in my subconscious. And that was so freeing that it just, yeah, that was about what three years, even the scrambled eggs show was just all old work, old work from middle school.

Deanne Sole 23:29
Yeah, was, was that process of opening up? Is that what led to the idea of something being cosmic? Because when I think of something that's cosmic, it's very open, very it admits a lot of things. You know, it reaches out to everything. It brings everything in and touches everything. Is that anything like the the feeling that you're, you're thinking of?

Brian Martinez 23:50
I think my biggest thing in studio was, what am I about? Oh, who am I? Intrinsically, like, an intrinsic journey, like, what do I? What? Who am I? So that I know my voice? Obviously, in school, they try to push you to figure that out, but it's like, but they give you a deadline, right? It's like, you have a well, in one week, you have to figure out who you are and write an artist statement about who you are and which. Like, it's like, what? But I had, I had no rush of school and everything. So it's like, okay, take a step back. I like anything to do with psychedelic thought. You know, psychedelic the opening of the mind, like just this expansion of everything, what it like, everything in the world. So it led me to the book, The Cosmic Game, by Stanislav Grof. I believe is a psychiatrist, and I think that Cosmic Game book just talked about everything, this connection, from the Mayas to the Egyptians to just thoughts, the mind. I think through that book, I found out about Carl Jung. Then, you know, you learned about the shadow, the this, that like, and that kind of like, okay. Hey, in that realm, I'm super interested in all that stuff. So that's my cosmic side. Like that became like, Okay, I love all this learning about all these things. And then the Chicano side was just the other part of my lived experience. It's almost like the Lucha Libre in the in the boxing, the Chicano side is like, that's what, that's who I am, that's my friends, that's everybody that's and when I did a lot of my other paintings, I didn't know if I expressed that much. So I wanted to go in the Chicano genre and learn more about myself through the visual expression of other Chicanos and chicanas and Chicanxes. Like is just like, Okay, what is everybody who's kind of a similar lived experience to me. What are their expressions like? And it slowly became like I want to contribute to this, because as soon as I started learning more about Mexican art, Chicano art is just it was just such cool. I just loved the art that was coming out of everybody.

Deanne Sole 25:58
And what sort of names were you looking at?

Brian Martinez 26:02
I'm so bad at names as soon as or genres. Well, Chicano art, a lot of like current day people like Dave Esparza, Mexican art, it was like Diego Siqueiros. I think it was Frida Kahlo. But then it goes deeper into those, you know, Frida Kahlo de guerre, kind of like the more mainstream names, and then you start to go into other ones. I have, like a book on Mexican printmaking and stuff like that. But, yeah, it was just just dive into both of these worlds. And how can I merge maybe an idea about the self or about the cosmos with a visual esthetic of Chicano, Chicano art that blends, that I can blend with everything else I've learned. So it's these two merging, you know, the cosmic and the Chicano together, merging together.

Deanne Sole 26:50
Yeah, I really love how you do that. And Floreo too. I'm really looking forward to your your new show, because I do want to see more of that. And it does feel that kind of merged look in Floreo, where you've got things from different points of Chicano history, you know, all together in the one thing, and it feels so absolutely natural. I think that's something I really admire. That's, yeah, yeah, the naturalness, you know, you look at it and it's these disparate things, but they feel so good together. I'm I'm aware that we're about coming up on the end of the show, and I'm really sorry, because I, I would have loved to talk about the the way you've painted a mural on the wall behind the shaped painting that you've put on that in that space. Before we wrap up, I do want to mention that you, you said you've done that in the new space as well, that there's going to be murals on the wall as well as individual paintings.

Brian Martinez 27:52
Yeah, the every, not every piece. Some pieces have aspects on top of them, or, like, cut out specific ways. But yeah, so the paintings I'm working on now have aspects on the wall, aspects of the actual piece itself, the material piece where it's getting painted. And yeah, just wanted it to take lots of forms. So it was just visually interesting.

Deanne Sole 28:19
I want to see this so much. It opens on the sixth,

Brian Martinez 28:24
September 6. Yes, Saturday, September 6 at Nuwu, and then, yeah, a

Deanne Sole 28:30
reception at Nuwu from five to eight. And the night before that, you've got the reception at the Marjorie Barrick for Floreo so that's, that's two nights of receptions for Brian Martinez's work. No, I'm so looking forward to this. And the fact that there's mural behind the work means that once it leaves these spaces, you are not going to see it like this again. So yeah, see his work in the gallery on the wall. Really important. All right, so I think we need to wrap up there, Brian. Thank you so so much for coming and talking to me today this. This was great. I've learned things about you I didn't know, and yet you're writing wise. I really love the writing that you did about the piece that we put in the brochure. So yeah. Anyway, thank you for listening to the Margerie. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for listening to Brian. I'm stumbling over my words. This has been the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art radio show, and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai