Móyòsóré Martins Now, They Know...
“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior,” says an old wisdom by Confusious. In that sense, the journey that is most enriching is the one that delves into the self, and the greatest art is often the product of an inner battle. Cezanne, Picasso, and Basquiat are amongst the great painters whose magnificent art was the product of a “creatively destructive” process. From this same artistic lineage comes Móyòsóré Martins: every painting is a pro-found journey into his inner battle, every brushstroke becomes a daring thrust, and every scratch inflicts a wound, only to artfully reconstruct anew. It is in Moyosore Martins’ unwavering authenticity that this deeply personal voyage resonates with all those who dare to “see” within. I hope these artistic jewels will open your eyes like they opened mine and tempt you to embrace vulnerability, to be exposed, and to be “seen.” Then you would know. “Now, they know...”
— Mazen Soueid
Black Men Can Love Too 2019 Oil on canvas
64 x 53 in. (160 x 132.5 cm)
Solo Exhibition
September 28 — October 11, 2023
Galerie Tanit Beirut X Teal Contemporary
East Village Building, Ground Floor Armenia Street, ar Mikhael
Beirut, Lebanon Hours
Monday to Friday 11 AM – 7 PM, Saturday 12 PM – 5 PM
Mazen Soueid
Phone: +9613656753
Email: msoueid@gmail.com
Contact
Teal Contemporary
Basma Chidiac
Phone: +961 71 096 868
Email: basma.chidiac@gmail.com
Galerie Tanit Beirut
Phone: +961 1 562 812
Email: beirut@galerietanit.com www.galerietanit.com
MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS (B. 1986)
Móyòsóré Martins, a self-taught mixed-media artist, uses his art to express his innately curious and spiritual nature. Raised in Lagos, Nigeria by a Brazilian father and a Nigerian mother from Ekiti state, Martins began using a paintbrush and pencil at a young age. He combines his traditional Yoruba cultural roots with a contemporary vision to create artwork that blends figurative, abstract, and narrative elements drawn from his unique life experience, including his journey from Nigeria to his Bronx studio.
Martins’s deeply symbolic artwork frequently features cultural and personal iconography, reflecting his life experience. His paintings are richly textured and use bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materials, and text. The vibrant, heavily layered canvases often include spiritual elements and wishes manifested and fulfilled. In addition to painting, Martins also creates three-dimensional art through using found objects and mixed media. 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, 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’ artwork has been exhibited at the Nassau County Museum (Roslyn, NY), TrafficArts (New York, NY), Long-Sharp Gallery (Indiannapolis, IN), Path Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Dacia Gallery (New York, NY), Heath Gallery (New York, NY), and Grady Alexis Gallery (New York, NY).
Móyòsóré Martins
Bronx Studio, NY
2023
EXHIBITIONS
2023 Art Shenzhen | Crossing Art | Shenzhen, China
2023 Butter | Indiannapolis, ID
2023 Robert Fontaine Gallery | Portraits in Focus | Group Show | Miami, FL
2023 Robert Fontaine Gallery | Intimate | Group Show | Miami, FL
2023 Solo Exhibition | Crossing Art | The Artist Journey | New York, NY
2023 Beijing Contemporary Art Fair | Crossing Art
2022 Beverly Hills Art Exchange | Group Show | San Francisco, CA
2022 Art Miami | Long-Sharp Gallery | Miami, FL
2022 Solo Exhibition: Long-Sharp Gallery | Indiannapolis, ID
2022 Butter | Indiannapolis, ID
2021 Nassau County Museum, Songs Without Words: The Art of Music | Roslyn, NY
2021 Path Gallery | Los Angeles, CA
2021 Long-Sharp Gallery | Conrad Indianapolis | Featured Artist | Indiannapolis, ID
2021 TrafficArts | New York, NY
2019 Dacia Gallery, Holiday Group Exhibition | New York, NY
2018 Heath Gallery | New York, NY
2017 Grady Alexis Gallery | Art United Presents: Radical Resistance to Xenophobia | New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS
Forbes, Móyòsóré Martins Solo Show, June 2023
Flaunt, Móyòsóré Martins: The Artist Journey, June 2023
Artnet News-Buyers Guide Spotlight, 2023
Artnet News, Art Collectors, 2023
Forbes, Sotheby’s Contemporary Discoveries, 2023
NY Magazine/Curbed, 2022
Pattern Magazine, 2022
Considering Art Podcast, 2022
Yahoo News, 2022
WRTV, 2022
Forbes 2021
Portray Magazine 2021
Office Magazine 2021
Art Daily 2021
Móyòsóré Martins Shows Up to Paint, Podcast with Asher Gottesman, 2021
Forbes, 2019
Asiri Magazine, 2017
Instagram: @moysoremartins1910
It Takes a Minute 2023 Oil, oil sticks, pigments and graphite on canvas 104 x 80in. (260 x 200 cm)
They Didn’t See Us Coming 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
Three Panels each 72 x 36 in. (180 x 90 cm)
72 x 108 in. (180 x 270 cm)
Seen (Male) 2022
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 in. (100 x 75 cm)
Seen (Female) 2022
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 in. (100 x 75 cm)
Móyòsóré Martins bridges abstract, figurative, and iconographic symbolism. He expresses the beauty in the figure and the depth of its subject; he obsesses with a cartoon- like character that imbues his personal iconography and that has a deep symbolic meaning. His approach is narrative and realistic in the early works, returning to his childhood memories. The African statue is increasingly present and spiritually meaningful in his work. He is fascinated with contemporary plastic toy statues and collectibles from artists like Kaws, representing everything different in juxtaposition to the traditional Yaruba figures. A seminal work, “Watchman,” resonates; the painting is a study of the Yaruba figure and is interpreted by Martins as the man taking on his destiny, with a nod to his experience while employed as a night watchman in the Bronx—a lasting impression.
Martins expresses the emotion of the characters he deftly paints, the backgrounds layered, manipulated, scratched, and then infused with text. He places himself in the canvas, in the artwork, both in spirit and name, even his birthdate. He scribbles words, mathematical formulas, mantras, and prayers. He visually expresses his internal conversation, which shifts as his world does—as a visual biography. He resists being put in a box. His unique use of materials and story is the cord that ties his work together.
As Long As I Can 2023
Oil, oil sticks, pigments and graphite on canvas 116 x 84 in. (290 x 210 cm)
Alatishé (Problem owner is the problem solver) 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Through It 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
Not While I’m Dreaming
2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and charcoal on canvas 116 x 84 in. (290 x 210 cm)
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and graphite on canvas 20 x 16 in. (51 x 41 cm) each
TABLETS SET IV (I, II, III, IV)
2023
Móyòsóré Martins exhalts the tradition of the Abstract Expressionist painters—the beginning.
Figurative and conceptualist elements then take the stage. Hatching, hard-handed distress brings the work together in harmony and depth—Móyòsóré’s own total.
— Asher Edelman
Iwa Agba (Old ways) 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
78 x 60 in (198 x 152 cm)
Cow Caou 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigment, acrylic, and graphite on canvas
72 x 210 in. (180 x 525 cm) Unstretched¬¬¬¬
“Seeing is believing. As an artist I have so many people who look to me. Not many are privileged to the life I have. Even back home I was always privileged. I never took that for granted. I saw poverty. People are really suffering. I am very grateful. My achievements are for us all. Everyone is watching me. Sometimes it feels like a lot. Being an artist plays the added expectation for success, for fulfilling the path, for taking the journey.”
—Moyosore Martins
Know No Better
2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
They Know I 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigments, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150 cm)
‘Lot On My Hands 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas
72 x 60 in. (180 x 150cm)
Enough 2023
Never
Oil, oil stick, pigment, and graphite on canvas 116 x 84 in. (290 x 210 cm)
Study for Attestation (Vouch) 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigment, charcoal, and graphite on canvas
60 x 48 in. (150 x 120 cm)
I
Tablet Set
2023
Oil, oil stick, pigment, pastel, and acrylic on canvas, mounted on board (2) 24 x 18 in. (60 x 45 cm)
72 x 36 in. (180 x 90 cm)
UNTITLED 2023
Oil, oil stick, pigments, graphite, and collage on cardboard mounted stretcher-bars
“How many times...
This painting is about my evolution—my artistic and personal growth. How many fears and self-doubt do I have to kill? Despite my vulnerability, I have just to let things play out. I’m observing my growth, and while acknowledging that nothing in life is smooth or permanent, it’s a very dark and deep place, and this painting expresses my constant need to tame and feed my inner demons and ego. The internal struggle allows me to get to where I am going.”
Móyòsóré Martins
How Many Times Do I Have to Kill Myself to Become Me 2022
Oil, oil stick, pigment, graphite on canvas 80 X 100 IN. (200 X 250 cm)
Galerie Tanit Beirut X Teal Contemporary
East Village Building, Ground Floor
Armenia Street, ar Mikhael
Beirut, Lebanon
Hours
Monday to Friday 11 AM – 7 PM, Saturday 12 PM – 5 PM
Contact
Mazen Soueid
Teal Contemporary
Phone: +961 36 56753
Email: msoueid@gmail.com
Basma Chidiac
Phone: +961 71 096 868
Email: basma.chidiac@gmail.com
All artwork included in this catalog are the unlimited worldwide copyright of Móyòsóré Martins ©2023. All photographs of the artist and studio are the copyright of Daniella Liguori ©2023 Catalog design by TrafficArts ©2023 www.traffic-nyc.com
