Long-Sharp Gallery
1 North Illinois, Suite A Indianapolis, IN 46204
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Cover Image: Arabinrin © Móyòsóré Martins
[catalogued on page 13]
Móyòsóré Martins is a mixed-media artist. Raised in Lagos, Nigeria by a Brazilian father and a Nigerian mother from Ekiti state, Martins adopted a paintbrush and pencil at a young age as instruments to express his innately curious and spiritual nature. Through his work, Martins blends his traditional Yoruba cultural roots with his contemporary vision of art.
Martins’s artwork combines figurative, abstract, and narrative elements drawn from his unique life experience and journey from Nigeria to his large Bronx studio. His work is deeply symbolic and frequently features cultural and personal iconography. Martins’s richly textured paintings feature bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materials, and text. The vibrant, heavily layered canvases are interspersed with spiritual elements and wishes manifested and fulfilled. Martins also works in three-dimensional form with clay sculpture. As Martins describes:
My artwork is intentionally raw. I like to use a lot of different materials and have rough-cut edges on the canvas. The paintings are textured with scratches, scribbles, and mud-like paint, as well as clay, liquid plastic, oil sticks, chunky layers of oil paint. I layer the background and then deconstruct them, which gives the feeling of wear and tear on the canvas. No painting is alike as each has symbolic patterns and encrypted messages hidden within it. I want to merge the vision with the given and the new world that I live in now. The word “Why?” is seen in a lot of the work because it leaves you asking the same question.
Forbidden by his father to create or study art as a child, Martins spent his college years in Ghana and the Ivory Coast studying computer science. He immigrated to New York City in 2015 to further pursue his artistic ambitions. Martins’s artwork has been exhibited most recently at the Nassau County Museum (Roslyn, NY), Path Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), TrafficArts (New York, NY), Dacia Gallery (New York, NY), Heath Gallery (New York, NY), and Grady Alexis Gallery (New York, NY).
According to the artist: “Adura is a painting that highlights the contrast between spirituality and religion, organized religion versus individual practice. Each relates to the process of developing beliefs around the meaning of life and connection. The word adura means prayer as a form of self-healing. This work signifies one’s thinking outside of the metrics and the understanding that some rules are created to contain us. This confinement is man-made and at times hinders us so much that we lose sight of the beauty and vast knowledge of the universe.”
Martins grew up exposed to many different religions, which inspires his work in various ways. The women in the painting are from a religious sect called the Celestial Group. The cat represents life and greed, while the figure in the middle is the artist’s subconscious. The watchman ties everyone to the painting; it is Martins, but it could be you. The watchman is a symbol that shows up in most of Martins’s artwork.
Adura
Year: 2022
Medium: Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
Size: Each 36 x 72 in (91.4 x 182.9 cm),
Total 72 x 72 in (182.9 x 182.9 cm)
Gbe mi means “carry me” in Yoruba. This painting is a study of a subject that Martins explores extensively: traditional Yoruba objects and sculpture. The statue appears as a female figure with a head tie or hat and pointy breasts sitting with a pot in her hand and a child on her back.
The stark yet simple colors—object in red and background in blue—create great contrast between the background and foreground. The straightforward presentation is enhanced by exaggerated strokes in a range of hues that create movement and dimensionality. Through the infinite verse of brushstrokes and hues, Martins allows the viewer’s imagination to drift to various places and see shapes forming into images the artist may not have intended to illustrate.
Gbe Mi
Year: 2019
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 60 x 46 in (152.4 x 116.8 cm)
Like most of Martins’s artwork, there is a great amount of layering that makes up the background, and parts of those layers are visible in the final work. The first layer of the entire piece started as a Tiffany blue that was later covered in a horizontal checkered pattern of deep navy blue and lime green, creating a great deal of movement and tension.
The focal point of Arabinrin is three women dressed in Yoruba attire that seem to emerge from the background. The women appear in the same Tiffany blue of the first layer, with darker hues of blue that illustrate them, their figure details, and the patterns on their outfits. The painting expresses a celebratory feeling, as all three women are dressed in outfits typically worn to events and parties. The Yoruba word arabinrin loosely translates to “sister,” and that sisterhood essence is embodied in this piece.
Arabinrin
Year: 2019
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 60 x 40 in (152.4 x 101.6 cm)
Móyòsóré Martins’s artwork is infused with encrypted messages for wishes fulfilled. Messages to the universe bringing his vision to life. From his wishes, his needs, his fears, and what he is thinking of at that moment.
This painting is unique in that it is void of imagery and solely focused on messages. Layers of paint and scribbles create a rich, contemporary expression.
The “Void” is something Martins addresses in his work consistently, sometimes finding himself in a mental space of total contemplation yet completely void of the path forward until it reveals itself through his creative process.
The Void Year: 2021
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 60 x 48 in (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
Study I
Year: 2022
Medium: Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
Size: 60 x 48 in (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
Study II
Year: 2022
Medium: Oil, oil stick, pigments, and charcoal on canvas
Size: 60 x 48 in (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
The Messenger
Year: 2020
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 40 x 30 in (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
