Luis Martin
Los Angeles -> New York
Collage as a Gift My Origin Story
As a child my grandmother worked at a posh convalescent home in Mar Vista California. She would come home with discarded fashion magazines from around the world. She clipped images of glamourous women, beautiful men and exotic places and tape them to the wall in our studio apartment. It was her template for a life she wanted to experience.
I soon followed suit, but when I looked for images that resembled my grandmother and I and did not find any, I resolved to tearing my own images and began to collage compositions that reflected our colors and textures. This creative practice gave me a vehicle to create a positive self image and place myself in the center of a world of my making.
Artist Statmenet
Collage is my vehicle to explore and understand the world around me from a place of power, curiosity, and agency. Unlike any other art form, collage is a democratic practice with low risks and high rewards. It allows me to make connections between the visual language of popular culture and historical context to arrive at my truth, without the weight of an imposed narrative. As an artist I get to write my own story in my own syntax as the protagonist.
A Brief Biography
Luis Martin aka The Art Engineer is a Brooklyn based artist from Los Angeles. Growing up he was surrounded by iconic works of art in his role of museum educator at institutions like MOCA in L.A. and MoMA in NY. As an Artist Martin “engineers” his creative practice as a point of departure for multi facet projects.
Through collage and mixed media he is engaged in a on going conversation with printed matter and his Mexican roots. The artist creates safe spaces for art by way of “Collage Dream” a passion project and small business that rallies people from around the world to explore creativity by way of collage as low risk and high reward activity. Martin’s insatiable curiosity keeps him asking questions that he answerers from his studio out as a community leader.
