Eddie Martinez is a true craftsman. We remember speaking to him years ago about just making and making, painting and drawing, drawing and painting, and letting motifs, ideas, recurring thoughts and old traditions seep in and out of his practice. It seems, inevitably, that Martinez would name a show Homework, because it seems like he is constantly bringing home from the studio ideas and aesthetics to resolve. Made from 2020 to 2024, Homework, on view now at Blum Gallery in Los Angeles, Martinez has made what is often large canvases into a more compact presentation, smaller and more intimate and more akin to his drawing surfaces. Here, you really see the hand of the artist.
As the gallery notes, “Beginning to work in this fashion in 2017, the artist started creating these diaristic vignettes as an alternative to the large-scale canvases he had become most known for. As this portable fusion of drawing and painting grew into a regular practice, Martinez found that the format was one he could turn to in moments of transition—whether at home with his family (and an abundance of shipping boxes during the pandemic in 2020) or, more recently, amid work-related travel.” It is refreshing to see such a prolific artist at this scale, taking in what was possible in the years before due to the pandemic and creating one of his most simply intimate shows of his career. —Evan Pricco