Pow Martinez: Underground spiritual unit

In Underground spiritual unit, Pow Martinez shows for the first time in Spain a collection of canvases that resume the main principles of his production: figurative compositions linked to expressionism and to the relationship between human and their natural and social environment. An enigmatic painting generated from the combination of everyday elements and the wilderness. This mixture, far from seeming remote, gives to his work a complete pictorial and narrative entity.

About the artist:

Pow Martinez's (b. 1983; lives and works in Manila, Philippines) paintings belie their grotesque subject matter with the indelibly beautiful surfaces and a wide-ranging, daring use of color. Mutants, monsters, demons, deviants, and freaks lurch, sit, and appear to transform amidst weirdly lit landscapes or disintegrating urban scenarios, or emerge from a painterly graffito mess, but, as his more abstracted works insist, Martinez’ ability to render intriguing relationships between forms and surfaces ensure his works are endlessly compelling—an experience akin to a beautiful nightmare.

Martinez is a recipient of the Ateneo Art Awards for his exhibition 1 Billion Years at West Gallery, Philippines. He exhibits internationally and has worked with different media, including sound. His recent exhibitions include City Prince/sses (2019) at Palais de Tokyo in Paris; 50 Years in Hollywood (2019) at Pinto Art Museum in New York; WASAK! Reloaded (2016) in Arndt, Singapore; and WASAK! (2016) in Arndt, Berlin. Martinez has also held a number of solo shows in major galleries in Manila, the most recent of which is Sustainable Anxiety (2020) in SILVERLENS. Early in 2018, Martinez had his first solo exhibition in Indonesia. Titled Aesthetic Police, the exhibition is an outcome of his month- long residency program at OPQRStudio in Bandung.

Exhibition: 25th February - 9th April 2022

Yusto/Giner Gallery. C/ del Barquillo 25, 28004 Madrid.