Amanda Martínez sculpts tessellated patterns that embrace a slowness both in process and reception. Though an attention to detail and uniformity across her surfaces may signal a mechanical means of production, Martínez in fact constructs her works entirely by hand. Inventing her own language of geometric abstraction, fashioning stencils or “profiles” of undulating shapes as distinct units of measurement, she maps out and carves her sculptures into discrete building blocks with infinite possible configurations. Martínez's work draws upon her intergenerational family history of working in adobe (earthen construction) as well as the visual languages of southwestern vernacular architecture and craft movements.

This screenprint takes her practice down to two dimensions. Here, Amanda provided a sketch for a basket pattern along with a rubbing from a completed basket linking the origins of a shape to the resulting vessel.

The title, “Lazos” translates to “loops” or “ties” from Spanish. When printed in alignment with the 4 corners of a square, this drawing proved structural integrity where every repeated gesture is united with hypnotic balance. The zero value of glossy white ink describes the form more fully by reflecting light against a natural green.

Amanda Martínez lives and works in Brooklyn, NY (Munsee Lenape / Canarsie land). She received her Bachelors in Fine Arts from Kansas City Art Institute. She recently completed the Lighthouse Works Fellowship in Fishers Island, NY as well as Cercado, an installation in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as part of the Ankhlave Garden Project Fellowship. Solo presentations of her work include The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Ridgefield, CT; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan; Here Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; HESSE FLATOW, New York, NY; Victori+Mo Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Platform Gallery, Baltimore, MD, and elsewhere. Her work has been reviewed in Curbed, Surface Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, among others.

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