Narsiso Martinez
The Hollywood and Vine brand produce box includes the iconic Hollywood lights and Hollywood sign with flat dark hills on the background. Because Hollywood reminds me of movies and fictional heroes, I decided to juxtapose fantasy with real life heroes, the farmworkers. The real heroes are honored through a more than life size portrait of a female farmworker depicted on the center of the piece. She holds a plastic water jug on her right hand and carries a canvas picking apple bag over her left shoulder. In a contrapposto stance, this female hero stands directly on the center of a star shape, resembling the heroes from the Hollywood and Vine walk of fame. By contrasting iconic images associated with fictional characters found in the movie industry, as well as agribusiness and the depiction of an actual protagonist who toils day by day in the agricultural fields to provide us with food, I hope to create consciousness about where we, as a society, place value. -Narsiso Martinez
Narsiso Martinez’s paintings and mixed media installations include individual portraits and multi-figure compositions of farm laborers set against agricultural landscapes and the branding designs of commercial growers; the works are created on discarded produce boxes. Drawn from his own experience as a farm worker, Martinez’s work focuses on the people performing the labors necessary to fill grocery stores and restaurant kitchens around the country. His work makes visible the difficult labor and arduous conditions of farm workers in America.
Martinez was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and migrated to the United States when he was 20 years old; he completed high school at the age of 29. To finance his education, Martinez worked seasonally in the apple orchards of Eastern Washington. Over the course of a decade he earned his AA and BFA degrees, culminating with his MFA from CSU Long Beach where he was awarded the prestigious Daedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture. Martinez’s award-winning work has since been exhibited both nationally and internationally; his work is held in numerous private and public collections.
Narsiso Martinez, Hollywood & Vine, 2022, Ink, charcoal, gouache, and acrylic on produce boxes, 7.5 x 63.5 in., Courtesy of Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)