For Victoria Martinez, inspiration is often born from interactions with architecture or the landscape: “It’s first and foremost what I see. From there, the spark of energy inspires me to work with textiles and color.” Martinez utilizes painting, sculpture, installation, and fiber art to enter into a dialogue with the physical materials comprising urban spaces and the histories embedded within them. 

Although abstract in nature, Martinez’s work is intimately tied to the human body and its unavoidable messiness. The artist often paints with squeeze bottles to capture the sensations of seeping fluids. Stretched across jagged bricks in small sculptures, her chosen fabrics of nylon and silk distend, twist, and tear like skin. In Miami at the height of summer, sweat preoccupied Martinez: “The sweat. You can’t control it. You’re just continuously drenched.” Back in the studio, she experimented with rubber and various pigments to try and recreate the perspiration generated by a fast-paced residency in a tropical climate. 

Martinez was particularly drawn to the unique architecture of Miami, elements of which made their way onto the canvas. A brick window covered by modernist breeze blocks, for example, was translated into vibrantly hued abstract forms on diaphanous silk in Miami Window. In a departure from her typical focus on the built environment, Martinez found unexpected inspiration in the lush vegetation encountered at Fountainhead and in trips to the Everglades. “There were so many trees I hadn’t seen that were so beautiful and exotic,” Martinez recounted. “They’re unique and they have their own life. I want to try and make a painting echoing the shapes I saw.” Ripened fruit from public markets, painted houses, and bright foliage all made their way onto Martinez’s palette -- sometimes literally, like the deep pink dye she created from local hibiscus flowers. “I come with a background in color,” Martinez said. “In Miami, there’s a ton of color; it’s a very inviting city.”