Mexican artist Noé Martínez was selected by the Rose Art Museum as the 2024 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-In-Residence Award recipient. The Perlmutter Artist-In-Residence program serves the goal of “promoting emerging artists of extraordinary talent whose work addresses contemporary issues of vital urgency.” Martínez’s exhibition “The Body Remembers” will be held at the Rose Art Museum from March 13th to June 16th this coming spring.
Martínez currently lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico. After attending the university La Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado for visual art and filmmaking, Martínez led several solo exhibitions. His work is also featured in several public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois.
The central themes of Martínez’s work involve colonialism, indigenous culture, resilience and mourning. Martínez is a member of the Huastec community of indigenous people in Mexico. The Huastec civilization was an early Mesoamerican civilization that originated in the northeastern regions of ancient Mexico. The ancient Huastec people were recognized for their distinct style of dance and art, as well as their extensive trade networks and sophisticated agricultural practices. Pre-Columbian Huastecs built temples, self-standing statues and designed elaborately painted pottery. During the Spanish conquest, the Huastec were a community that was “severely dismembered by the mercantile trade system of the viceroyship, and, at the same time, one of the most forgotten by the official story or academic studies of Mexico,” Martínez states.
Inspired by his family’s Huastecan heritage, Martínez explores how traces of his ancestors manifest within his own body. “The Body Remembers” features several life-size drawings that envelope the gallery along its walls. There are also pre-Hispanic style clay pots that are figurative vessels depicting stories of his people. Drawing from his background in film, Martínez also included a large video projection depicting a ceremonial dance that tells the story of his ancestors’ histories and trauma from colonialism. Taken together, Martínez’s art draws from politics, history and human emotion to shed light on the history of his community’s culture.
