IB Visual Arts LINCOLN SCHOOL Costa Rica: NATALIA MARTINEZ Ib Visual Arts Lincoln School Costa Rica

The Artist Statement
Natalia Martinez

All I see when I wake up are the amorphous shapes that surround me. Somehow they seem to be moving, they have different shapes, smells, textures and volumes although I can only capture some of them. Then I put on my glasses and proceed with my routine. But I’m still blind. Although these shapes acquire a names there are still not a part of my reality. It happens the same thing with people that surround me. They seem to be speaking to me, laughing, crying, and expressing other emotions but I can’t help to think that the person they are seeing and laughing with is not me. So this leads to the idea of getting into the feet of others. How do they construct who am I. Do they also feel disconnected?

Exploring the other. That is what I would call my art. Taking off my contact lenses, relaxing my eyes, and seeing the wold through others eyes of what I’m used to. Looking more at the general and less at the specific. In a sense its like creating different impressionist and self owned realities. Inspired by Renoir for my self portrait, getting others into my art, is for instance simply a representation of how God looks at us.

The use of mixed media: vegetable paper, printing, water color, tracing paper, water color pencils, water color markets, pens, acrylics, indian ink, that have allowed me to blend the concepts of society, with the the desires to create a blurred idealization of post-modern humanity. This process took me from mixing red, blue and yellow to recognizing the difference between crimson, magenta, and cadmium red. It was like learning a new language. I could now express my ideas through color, texture, line, different medium, its like represent ideas, feelings and dimensions with a palette of colors by changing the technique. At the end it is the concept of taking what I see and embodying it to the canvas what has made possible to create the sense of the other.