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Bella Sierra Martinez
Bella Martinez’s work is focused on the translation and transformation of materials, aiming to explore the space between painting and sculpture. Further, Martinez has started to observe how her interests outside of the studio, like making music, can overlap how she thinks about making visual work and how these ideas can start to inform one another. A native Texan, Martinez currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. She has recently completed undergraduate school at the Kansas City Art Institute, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting. Martinez has exhibited work in cities including San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Kansas City.
Resume (PDF)
Work Samples (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Visual Arts: Mixed Media Artist, Painter, Sculptor
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
My current work explores degrees of abstraction through conceptual collage, often with a reference to a digital platform. My work seeks to push the extent to which an image or material can transform into something else. By investigating this in-between state of translation, I aim to engage with abstraction as a way to make sense of my surroundings and refamiliarize myself and viewers with theirs. I find a sense of comfort in overstimulation, like listening to music while reading a book, or playing guitar while watching reality television. This carries over into my practice by combining many materials on to one surface or using one medium in as many ways as I possibly can at the same time. The act of exposing an elaborate interior, or a buildup of layered materials, is a way I suggest the idea of looking through an object and alludes to the digital distortion or experience of processing information through a screen. Through this translation of mediums, I aim to distort the viewer’s perception of time and drag out the immediacy of accessing information in a digital space.
