About Marion

Artist Statement

Marion Martinez
Image by Julie Graber
My artwork represents the coming together of the dichotomy of my life experiences. I was born into the Hispanic tradition and influenced by the Native American surroundings of my childhood. I was born to a family and community of farmers and ranchers yet I was raised in the shadows of one of our nation’s foremost high technology research facilities, (the Los Alamos National Laboratory). My artwork combines the images and symbols of my culture and of my environment with the components derived from the technology developed in my backyard.

Bio

Marion C. Martinez was born in Espanola, New Mexico and raised in Los Luceros, just North of Espanola. After her graduation from Espanola High School, she attended the College of Santa Fe. Following her graduation from college, Marion began her career as a family therapist, working first at the Santa Fe Battered Women’s Shelter (now “Esperanza”), then with “La Nueva Vida”, an alcohol and drug rehabilitation program for teens, and finally as a psychotherapist in private practice working primarily with abused and neglected children and their foster families and families of origin.

Throughout her life, Marion has created art, working with a variety of media including wood, clay and paint. In 1987 Marion began exploring the creation of video art using computer generated and animated images. At one point in this process Marion opened her computer’s CPU to insert a new board and was amazed by the beauty of the circuit boards and wire which made this machine function. Within a few months of making this discovery, Marion began collecting and salvaging discarded circuit boards and other electronic components and creating wearable art (jewelry), sculpture and wall hangings.

Marion Martinez In September of 1992, Marion’s “circuit board art”, which she refers to as “Mixed Tech Media” art began being accepted into juried art shows. Since then she has been selected to participate in over one hundred juried, invitational and museum sponsored shows throughout the US and Canada. Her work appears in various Museum and Public Art collections including the collection of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Hispanic Research Center collection at Arizona State University, the San Juan and Northern New Mexico Community College collections and several corporate collections including the Nokia Corporation, BP Amoco and Fidelity Investments corporate art collections. During the 1999 Christmas season, her work hung on the New Mexico tree at the White House.

Marion has received several awards for her work including “Best of Show” in the 2002 Contemporary Hispanic Market in Santa Fe, NM. Her work has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and was featured on the cover of The Santa Fe New Mexican’s weekly arts publication, the Pasatiempo.

In April of 1996, Marion closed her psychotherapy practice to focus on the creation and evolution of her art. When Marion is not creating her mixed tech media work, she can be found tending to her vegetable and herb gardens.