Brought up on a diet of scrap iron, with locks around his neck, metalwork artist Jean-Marc Martinez creates a constant duality of constructionist avant-gardism and classicism in which our eyes can just make out the watermark of the forgotten pages of an ancient book. The artist’s universe is populated by often stylish but never vulgar women in hats, who appear alongside proud, cock-a-hoop men in three-piece suits.
A sensitive metalwork artist in search of harmony
Jean-Marc Martinez sculpts, welds and unwelds in the same way others go to confession. His anatomical and totemic sculptures, whose sensitivity and refreshing spirit delight the eye, are intimate illustrations of a hugely sensitive nostalgia for blossoming orange trees. Often, the composition is dense without being saturated. Sometimes wooden elements secretly reside in the metal, but there are never any sketches, never any preparatory work. The hand guides the mind and never vice versa. From it explodes a world of soothing harmony.
An ode to femininity and curves
Jean Marc “knows how to do it”, making him an iron artisan. He “dares to do it”, making him an artist worth following. Abstract or figurative, folded or twisted, his compositions enchant a disenchanted world.
But it’s no secret that man is anxious… much to our delight, behind every artist there is a woman. It’s safe to say he always recalls that everything began with a candlelit dinner and this is sealed for eternity with the imprint of a flower.
