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MARTIN AZEVEDO

They were a forest of giant oaks

Martin Azevedo - They were a forest of giant oaks

Martin Azevedo- They were a forest of giant oaks, represents a chance to view Azevedo’s amazing work. From the first print ever made to the newest work made by my collogue Martin Azevedo, artist have long used this medium to promote ideas and bring about social change. A native Californian, Azevedo knows first-hand of the dramatic changes that are occurring in the Californian climate and environment. In his image making, Azevedo creates an apocalypse with unimaginable consequences. Spending time with this work will inevitably make you think of mankind and the manipulation of our planet in a way that may leave you uneasy, but also asking yourself, “what can I do to help change the future?.” In that way Azevedo has made a positive change to your thinking with the work he so intently creates. We are very fortunate to have this exhibition in our gallery.

Printmaking in all forms is fundamental area of educating artists in the Art Department. Having exceptional exhibitions of printmaking in our galleries helps to generate meaningful discussions and lifelong learning about these mediums. The University Art Gallery’s programing helps to support our faculty’s teaching. It is usually through faculty recommendations that many exhibitions come to our galleries. This very special exhibition comes to our galleries as a celebration of the research that Martin Azevedo made during his recent sabbatical.

I would like to thank the many colleagues that have been instrumental in presenting this exhibition. Martin Azevedo for the chance of exhibiting his important work, Betty Brown for her wonderful essay, Noely Ortiz, our Administrative Support Coordinator for her tireless work in organizing and arranging the show details, Jasmine Ramos, our Student Gallery Assistant for her help installing the exhibition. I would also like to thank, Brad Peatross of the School of the Arts and California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design and Stan State Print Shop for the printing this catalog. I would also like to thank the Instructionally Related Activates Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. The support is greatly appreciated.

Dean

Cocker, Director

University Art Gallery

California State University, Stanislaus

Find Our Account Running, Relief and Color Pencil, 84” x 38”, 2024

Martin Azevedo’s Apocalyptic Visions

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

~T. S. Elliot

Martin Azevedo is a figurative artist who uses drawing and various forms of fine art printmaking to depict disturbing images of our world suffering apocalyptic destruction. Like many historic expressionists, he distorts both color and form to infuse his images with intense emotional charges. Chaos and devastation dominate his surreal landscapes. Nightmarish terrains are populated by deformed bodies and leafless trees. Toxic smoke rises from burned soil. Weapons of war annihilate the desiccated land.

Azevedo lives and works in Turlock, California, where he is Chair of the Art Department at California State University, Stanislaus. He received an MFA in printmaking from Ohio State University in 2012, after studying at several colleges in his native California. He has worked in photography, paint, and collage, but recently he has focused on printmaking (relief, screenprint, and lithography) combined with color pencil to depict disconcerting panoramas of a world in horrific decline. He gives titles to his current works with phrases taken from Abraham Lincoln’ 1838 Lyceum Address. Decades before his presidency, Lincoln warned that “if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” He must have been prescient: today we are indeed the authors of the environmental havoc wrought by climate change. This is particularly visible in Turlock, where Azevedo lives. Once a center of fertile farmlands, Turlock is currently experiencing severe drought and extremely high heat—which means less abundant harvests. (Lincoln, who grew up on a farm and deeply valued our verdant planet, would be horrified.)

CREATIVE PROCESS

Azevedo begins his work in sketchbooks, where he makes pictorial “notes” to initiate the compositional process. Then he selects from what might at first seem random gatherings of visual elements: human skeletons, fragments of crawling figures, architectural details, outlines of hills and trees, etc. He assembles these into narrative arrangements that are transferred to printing plates or paper. When he uses his complex printmaking process, he enhances the images with colored pencil. When his final product is a drawing, he omits the printing step and works more directly from the sketchbook prompts. Azavedo limits his palette deliberately, focusing on dark rusty red, sour yellow, pale blue, and pitch-black. There is no happy cherry red or sunshine yellow here; these are anxious colors that embody the surreal forms he assembles in his compelling scenes.

In addition to limiting his palette, the artist also limits his vocabulary of forms. There are many humans, or rather, parts of humans: severed hands, decapitated torsos, boneless corpses. Leaf-less trees rise in desolate fields. Toxic clouds rise like last gasps from the planet’s surface, threatening black bursts shoot into the heavens. Billboards proclaim: “Pray for Rain” or “The End” or simply “End.”

Intriguingly, Azavedo omits several key components of our world. This series of images has neither female figures nor children. Indeed, the only animals are human men. This dystopia has no plant life, with the single exception of barren trees. The only technological intrusions are steam shovels and a squadron of planes dropping bombs (or possibly streams of chemical weapons) on a burnt horizon. And there is virtually no water--unless the yellow ooze underneath one wounded bridge is what passes for water here. This is indeed The End.

THREE ARTWORKS

Here are just a few examples of Azevedo’s work:

I was a river is an 18” x 26” color pencil drawing from 2025. The drawing is predominantly blue and yellow, with blue, yellow, and green stripes in the sky. On the far left is one of Azevedo’s characteristic leaf-less trees. Unusual in this body

of work, a snake coils around the trunk. To the tree’s immediate right is a standing human skeleton. There are some architectural fragments in the distance and then, to the right, a headless figure on a pedestal. Behind the statue loom the ruins of a building with columns and façade that resemble Ancient Greek temples. There is no vision of a river. Instead, the coiling serpent and the figure to the right of it recall the Biblical story of the Expulsion from Eden. According to Chapter 3 in Genesis, God forbade Adam and Eve to taste the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but Satan (appearing as a serpent) convinced Eve to do so. In turn, Eve convinced Adam to join her and when he did, the two original humans were expelled from Eden. Azevedo’s work alludes to the Expulsion story, bringing it forward through history, the time trip symbolized by the damaged temple. He seems to caution viewers that we may be losing our claim on the once Edenic planet.

I was a volcano is a color pencil drawing from 2025. Again, the far left-hand part of the composition is occupied by a barren tree. In front of it are four men in dark red uniforms (perhaps the dark red of dried blood?) The uniforms resemble Hazmat chemical protection suits. The men wear pale blue helmets, two of which are rounded like Hazmat helmets, two of which are pointed. (They are not pointed like KKK headgear, but stubbier, like truncated cones.) A shredded American flag flutters in the distance, surrounded by numerous dead tree stumps. The men seem to be scouring the earth’s surface in search of some valuable but lost commodity. Is it water? Or are they looking, in vain, for plants that survived the apocalypse?

To Sink and be Forgotten is a large (84” x 38”) relief print and color pencil piece from 2024. A yellow and black landscape suffers under a barrage of over a dozen airplanes dropping bombs on distant hills. The horizon is lined with burnt trees. Three demolished steam shovels hover near mounds of detritus, perhaps the waste material of strip mining. A broken boat sits on what may have been a river. And in the center of the composition, a black pool (perhaps a tar pit?) is populated by what seem to be trapped and sinking human figures. Elliot’s words echo: “This is the way the world ends.”

HISTORY

Azevedo is part of a long lineage of artists who have portrayed dystopian views of the planet. Some of the passages in his works echo the “Hell” panel of Dutch Master Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510).

Azevedo’s tortured bodies recall similar figures from the Spaniard Francisco do Goya’s etching series Disasters of War from 1814. In the early twentieth century, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) similarly included severed body parts and angular surreal space. At about the same time, Otto Dix created the War Diptych (192932), another haunting depiction of the horrors of war. Even more recently, Jim Nutt and the Chicago Imagists distorted figures in bizarre fashion to make wry commentary on social ills. And in the early 1970s, former Abstract Expressionist painter Philip Guston turned to cartoon-like figures in order to describe the political nightmare of living under President Richard Nixon.

Outlining Azevedo’s artistic lineage is not to say his work is derivative. Far from it. Although it has surreal moments and expressionistic distortion, he copies neither surrealists nor expressionists. His distinctive palette, exclusive vocabulary of forms, and complex multi-media process--as well as the specific historic moment he lives in and comments on— make his work unique. They also, as it happens, make his work both culturally important and visually appealing.

Betty Ann Brown, Ph.D.

Art

Historian, Critic and Curator Turlock September 2025

To Sink and be Forgotten, Relief and Color Pencil, 84” x 38”, 2024

Overturn that Fair Fabric, Relief and Color Pencil, 84” x 38” 2025

Burn for Distinction, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2024

Scorn to Tread in the Footsteps, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2024

To Sink and be No More, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2024

The Quarry of Sober Reason, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2024

I was a River, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2025

I was a Tall Tree, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2025

I was a Volcano, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2025

Opposite:

The Silent Artillery of Time, Color Pencil, 18” x 26”, 2024

A Lonely Trunk, Intaglio, 15” x 17”, 2023

Glorious Day, Lithography, 14.5” x 17”, 2023

Service,

Same Day

Lithography, 14.5” x 18.5”, 2023

The Search, Relief and Screenprint, 15” x 17”, 2023

Amass, Relief and Screenprint, 15” x 17”, 2023

Martin Azevedo

Marty Azevedo’s prints and drawings investigate themes of symbolism, archetypes, masculinity, power, narrative, and allegory. Born and raised in Hanford, California, he earned his BA in Art from California State University, Chico in 2009, and his MFA from The Ohio State University in 2011.

Azevedo’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is held in several notable permanent collections, including the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library, the Jules Heller Print Study Room at the Arizona State University Art Museum, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, the Artist Printmaker/Photographer Research Collection at the Texas Tech University Museum, and the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress.

He continues his studio practice while serving as Professor of Printmaking in the Department of Art at California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock, California.

REPOSITORY

Sound:

Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union; Tool - Aenima ; Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire ; Choking Victim - No Gods No Managers

Text:

Abraham Lincoln - Lyceum Address; Jared Diamond - Guns Germs and Steel:The Fate of Human Societies; Mircae Eliad - The Myth of the Eternal Return; David Wallace Wells - The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming; Fernando Cervantes - Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest

Visuals:

Sergio Leone: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Opposite: Installation

Stan State Art Space, 2025

Martin Azevedo CV

EDUCATION

2012 MFA in Printmaking, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

2009 B.A. Art / Minor Art History California State University, Chico, CA

SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024 We Find our Account Running, Arts Visalia, Visalia CA

2020 Faculty Exhibition, Faculty Development Center, Turlock, CA

2018 12thAnnual California Centered Printmaking, Solo Exhibition Merced, CA

2018 Expect the Approach of Danger, Whitney Center for the Arts, Sheridan, WY

2017 The Innumerable Gestures of Men, Tri-Chromatic Gallery, Modesto, CA Behold the Man, Faculty Development Center, CSU Stanislaus, Turlock, CA

2016 If Destruction be Our Lot, Art Space on Main, Turlock, CA

2015 We Will Live Forever, C.O.S. Art Gallery, Visalia, CA

2014 Our Lot, Spire, Mobile, AL

Building Steam, Merced Art Gallery, Merced, CA

2013 100 Dialects, Roy G Biv Gallery, Columbus, OH

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Department of Art Faculty Exhibition, Art Space, CSU Stanislaus, Turlock, CA Tapped, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

2022 Uplift, Kent State University Printmaking, The in Art Gallery (virtual exhibition)

Communities West V, Exit Gallery, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

2021 Take Flight, Chartreuse Muse Gallery, Modesto, CA Stories 10, 1078 Gallery, Chico, CA

ART @ CSU, The University Art Gallery, Sonoma State University

7th International Exhibition and Publication on New Media Art, CICA Museum, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

2020 Southern Hospitality, University of Nebraska, Omaha, Fine Arts Building, Omaha, NE

Impressed: Upside Down, The Art Gym, Denver, CO

Under Pressure, Fort Collins Lincoln Center, Fort Collins, CO

University Faculty Invitational, LH Horton Gallery, Stockton, CA

2019 Recto Verso, Rocky Mountain Print Alliance Conference, Salt Lake City, UT

The Contemporary Print, Print Austin, Austin, TX

2018 Extent of Territory, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

Pacific States Biennial National Exhibition, University of Hawaii, Hilo, HI Frontera, Mid America Print Council, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY EVAC Print Project, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum, Fremont, OH , Wolfe Gallery, Toledo, OH

Trumped, Gallery FAB, University Missouri, St. Louis, St. Louis, MI

Communities: West III, RMPA 2018, Pullman, WA, Montana Art Museum, Missoula, MT, Saltgrass Printmakers, Salt Lake City, UT

2017 Printwork 2017, Artist Image Resource, Pittsburgh, PA

Hot and Ready, PrintSpace, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, Foster Art Gallery, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA

2017 A.D. Gallery, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke, NC

IPCNY Just Under 100, International Print Center New York, New York, NY

11th Annual California Centered Printmaking Exhibition, Merced Cultural Arts Center, Merced, CA

The Disseminator of Useful Knowledge:2017, New Harmony Print Invitational and Exchange, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, New Harmony, IN

Still Life, The Ordinary Made Extraordinary, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT

2016 Stories Five, 1078 Gallery, Chico, CA

Pacific States Biennial National Exhibition, University of Hawaii, Hilo, HI

Stand Out Prints, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN

2015 Atlanta Print Biennial, Kai Lin Art, Atlanta, GA

Press & Pull, The Center for Visual Arts, Greensboro, NC

Printmaking Now, IMAGO Gallery, Warren, RI

4 x 6 24 Chambers: Contextual Language, Corridor 2122, Fresno, CA

La Arrache 4, Les Abattoirs, Riom, France

2014 Conduit, Lake Region Arts Council, Fergus Falls, MN

Mash Up: Collages in Mixed Media, Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY

Impact-Influence, Carnegie Gallery at Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, OH

2013 La Calaca Press 2013, Museo De la Ciudad, Cuernavaca, Mexico

Big Ten Prints, Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence, KS

2012 Department of Art: Visiting Artists and Lecturers, Swing Space Gallery, Columbus, OH 20/20 Vision 5th Edition, The Art of Contemporary University, The Fire House Gallery, Louisville, GA (Catalogue)

2011 Kingsville Inksville, The University of Texas Kingsville, Kingsville, TX

American Youth Printmaking, Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China (Catalogue)

Printed Matters, Shot Tower Gallery, Columbus, OH New Prints 2011/ Summer, The International Print Center, New York, NY Juror: Trenton Doyle Hancock

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2011 Best in Show The Atomic Explosion at Peter Blum, Plus New Prints 2011/ Summer, at the International Print Center. The Village Voice, June 2011

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library, New York, NY

Jules Heller Print Study Room, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ The Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL Artist Printmaker/Photographer Research Collection, Texas Tech University Museum, Lubbock, TX

Janet Turner Print Museum, California State University Chico, CA Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Brigham Young University Print Archives, Provo, UT

Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Ft Wayne, IN Mid America Print Council Print Archives

Hawaiian State Foundation on Culture and the Arts

PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIOS

2022 Uplift, curated by Karla Hackenmiller

2021 National Monument Press Risograph Portfolio, curated by Zach Clark

2020 Trumped 2.0, curated by Richard Peterson and Beauvais Lyons

2019 Recto Verso, curated by Eileen Macdonald and Matt Hopson Walker

Communities West IV, curated by Andrew Rice and Sukha Worob Transcontinental Railroad, curated by Andrew Rice

2018 EVAC Print Project, curated by Joseph Van Kerkhove and Lee Fearnside Frontera, curated by Fawn Atencio Trumped, curated by Richard Peterson

Communities: West III, curated by Sukha Worob and Andrew Rice

2016 Hot and Ready, Participant, curated by Nathan Pietrykowski and M. Robyn Wall

2014 Law and Order, curated by Richard Peterson

2013 Frogman’s Print Workshop Portfolio, curated by Jeremy Manard Secrets, Participant, curated by Sophie Knee

Lithoholics-Non-Anonymous, Participant, curated by Richard Peterson

Transmogrify, Participant, curated by Jack Arthur Wood Jr

RESIDENCIES

2016 Jentel Artist Residency, Sheridan, WY

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2022 Southern Graphics International Printmaking Conference, Hypersonic Color Litho, Talk/Print Demonstration

Acknowledgements

California State University, Stanislaus

Dr. Britt Rios-Ellis, President

Dr. Richard Ogle, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs

Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Art

Martin Azevedo, Professor, Chair

Artur Da Silva, Assistant Professor

Dean De Cocker, Professor

Daniel Edwards, Professor

Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor

Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor

Ellen Roehne, Lecturer

Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Professor

Susan Stephenson, Professor

Jake Weigel, Professor

Mirabel Wigon, Assistant Professor

Noely Ortiz, Administrative Support Coordinator

Alex Quinones, Instructional Tech II

Matt Hayes, Equipment Technician II

University Art Galleries

Dean De Cocker, Director

Noely Ortiz, Administrative Support Coordinator

School of the Arts

Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II

Martin Azevedo - They were a forest of giant oaks

August 25–October 24, 2025 | Stan State Art Space, California State University, Stanislaus | 226 N. First St., Turlock, CA 95380

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.