Local In-Home Art Show Gives Artist Voice

On Saturday night, Sept. 27, local artist Eric Martinez hosted an art show featuring his first series of paintings. Martinez and his wife Sara, hosted the show at their house with the gallery right in their living room. Martinez and friends Hector Agremon and Joel O’Neal were instrumental in making the gallery. They built the display for the paintings themselves and gave the living room a complete makeover and built the framework to hang the art up. Martinez was born and raised in Colton. The house that the art show was held used to be his sister’s house. “We live among art,” Sara Martinez said while laughing. There were five pieces of his art on display. However, there were many other pieces from the set that were just too big to be displayed in the room. Martinez selected which paintings he wanted to be displayed that night, and left the others out. Each piece had a small note on the side with a description that told the story behind each one of the pieces. Sara briefly explained the process behind Martinez’s work. His paintings never turn out to be what he envisioned from the beginning. According to Sara, when he would finish a piece, he sometimes wants to keep going, or keep making changes, and ends up destroying the piece entirely. “If you like the painting, get it because it’ll be completely different the next day,” she said. The five paintings displayed were titled “Slowkill Trafficjam”, “On With The Show”, “Promised Lands”, “Learn to Swim”, and “The Looking Glass”. Two out of the five pieces were painted on wood, while the other three were painting on donated sheet metal. “On With The Show” was a painting about his grandmother. The description read: “The artist comes to terms with his grandmother’s illness and addiction to antidepressants in this nightmare fantasy of psychiatric intervention.” The artist, Martinez, shared, “For the past three years I have struggled with these five paintings. I will not lie to you and say that any part of this process was easy.”