Devotions and Migration: In Conversation with Miguel Martinez
Miguel Martinez in his studio. Image courtesy of Francisco Donoso. 2024.
I met up with Miguel Martinez at his Brooklyn studio in Bushwick on a sunny Sunday morning to talk about his recent solo exhibition Tell Me How It Ends at GRIMM in Tribeca. Half of his studio is drenched in a mural, revealing his process at a large yet intimate scale. Miguel creates drawings, paintings, sculptures, and murals that materialize a life's worth of collecting—memories, impressions, source material, found detritus, and unlikely inspirations: from drag queens to grandma’s garden. We talked about his evolving practice and migratory experience in the US as a DACA recipient, something we both have in common. This is a portion of our conversation transcribed and edited for readers.
Francisco Donoso: There's so much to look at. I'm kind of overwhelmed because I love dissecting every little bit. How did your show at GRIMM come about?
Miguel Martinez: The show at GRIMM came about through an invitation by Anthony Cudahy, whose show Fool’s errand is upstairs. Anthony is a good friend of mine—we've known each other since our time at Hunter. He told me he had a show in mind similar to my thesis at Hunter, which was a mural installation with works on paper hanging on top of it—a large, immersive collage that people could walk into. When Jorg Grimm and Michael Plunkett, the director at the time, came for a studio visit, they saw a selection of drawings I was working on and were into the collage work. We decided to create another collage space for the show. I worked on it from January until the end of August, so it’s a mix of work I’d already started and new pieces made specifically for the show.
Installation view of site-specific mural for Tell Me How It Ends by Miguel Martinez. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM. Image credit GC Photography, 2024.
FD: Was the original idea to create an immersive collage mural in the entire downstairs gallery?
MM: Yes, that was the original idea. But once I executed the first version of the mural in my studio and saw the work on top of it, I realized it was too much—there was just too much content and surface, and it felt overwhelming. So I scaled it down, keeping it to just one room. The mural became more like a passageway leading to the paintings, rather than a fully immersive collage.
FD: Your work and mural incorporate iconography from inside and outside Catholic tradition. What drew you to those sources, and how did they inform your decision to create a site-specific mural for the show?
MM: The blue in the piece is important. It’s the same blue that the Virgin of my hometown wears. Every year, there's a big festival for her, and when I went to Mexico in May for a family funeral, with advance parole, it coincided with this festival. It was a very typical Mexican experience—death and festivities happening at the same time. My rancho is called La Luz Texas, and the Virgen de La Luz there is a replica of a Sicilian original that happens to also be worshiped in the Philippines. In my town, she took on specific characteristics, particularly her blue and white colors, which are everywhere during the festival. I wanted to bring that specificity of place to Tribeca through the palette.
Installation view of Tell Me How It Ends by Miguel Martinez. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM. Image credit GC Photography, 2024.
FD: It feels like a portal, like you’re being transported as you enter the exhibition. So you were also incorporating religious imagery from your upbringing?
MM: Yes, I realized when I went back to Mexico how much of the imagery I grew up with—gardens, religious symbols—appears in my work. My grandmother has a lush garden; though I don’t keep plants myself, that imagery is deeply ingrained in me. The religious iconography is something I can't get away from. Once you’re Catholic, it stays with you, whether you want to or not.
Installation view of Tell Me How It Ends by Miguel Martinez. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM. Image credit GC Photography, 2024.
FD: How old were you when you moved to the US?
MM: I was 9, and that was an interesting time because, of course, once I came to the US, there was a strange assimilation process. You're trying to fit into a country that's not yours. You're trying to learn the language. But at the same time, I was beginning to realize that I was queer. That’s when I started distancing myself from religion. I found it a bit alienating, though I’ve always been fascinated by its imagery and found it magical. It was a space for fantasy. And in Mexico, it's so surreal to take in the culture and the symbology of religious imagery.
Catholicism didn’t feel welcoming to me then, so I started exploring other spiritualities, like Hinduism and Buddhism, which opened up my ideas about the shapes devotion could take. I bring those into my work too—both are so rich in imagery and symbolism. It’s all like a living collage that I’m constantly piecing together.
Miguel Martinez, Heaven Let Me In (2022–24). Mixed media on paper on panel. 24 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM. Image credit GC Photography, 2024.
FD: I want to talk to you about rasquachismo. In your paintings, there are a lot of additive processes—collage with various materials. How do you select those materials?
MM: Rasquachismo is an attitude I relate to. Growing up, so much of the craft that surrounded me was about making things beautiful with whatever you had on hand. My grandpa made marble tiles, my uncle was a carpenter, and I would see a lot of ceramics and paper mache folk art in the markets of Celaya. My aunt Lupe would also make repujados, decorative embossed tin. We didn’t have paintings, but we knew how to manipulate materials to decorate and make humble things beautiful.
In my work I tend to lean towards shimmery metallics. I think it's seductive, and it brings to mind things outside the traditional painting sphere, like costuming and sequined dresses on drag queens, or glitter makeup or growing up with festivals where they would make ornate flowers for parade floats out of paper.
FD: The church is a perfect example of using shiny things to seduce people. Your use of mixed media is almost like a bridge between two disparate worlds: They make reference to queer life and contemporary trash culture, and also to baroque Catholic symbology and divinity.
MM: That's where devotion comes in. But not devotion like the self-flagellation kind of thing. You know? More like the playfulness of taking care of all these aspects and acknowledging that I'm standing in many different arenas. I try to find a way of tying them together, sometimes literally tying ribbons, tying threads, or sewing objects onto canvas.
FD: So you were in grad school during the pandemic?
MM: Yes, and a lot of the work from the show is rooted in that time. I started therapy during the pandemic with a great therapist who practiced yoga, breathwork, and other new-age techniques. We built a strong rapport. She used visualization exercises, knowing that I was an artist, and it was almost like art therapy. But since I didn’t have a studio, I was making work in my kitchen for a while, doing watercolors and other small things. It was tough.
Eventually, I got tired of working at home and thought, "Why am I making stuff here when I could be doing it anywhere?” So, I started carrying this small book around. It became this kind of portable studio and holds the seeds for what eventually became my thesis show. I was doing botanical drawings, painting landscapes in parks, and exploring different queer spaces like Riis Beach. I filled it with everything—things that turned me on, things that turned me off. It was like an almanac of moods and ideas. There were pieces of nature, butterfly wings, drawings I made in Fire Island, stamps, and vintage porno magazines a friend was tossing out. This book became a time capsule of 2020 for me. I cherish it and still go back to it when I feel stuck or need reminders of certain lessons.
Miguel Martinez in his studio. Image courtesy of Francisco Donoso. 2024.
FD: How has being a DACA recipient played into you being an artist? I know that’s a huge question, especially since I’m a DACA recipient too.
MM: Yes. It has definitely played a part.
All the amulets I work with have been a useful vehicle for me. I came across them for the first time in Chicago. My family was visiting the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and I saw these milagros tied to the saints there. On the surface, they were cool and shiny, but then I noticed some interesting surreal imagery and started collecting them. I have since bought more on eBay and even some at a market in San Miguel de Allende. They became this migratory object for me, which I found magical. During the whole experience of migrating, deciding what parts of yourself to assimilate and what parts you keep intact has been a lifelong negotiation.
I want to keep exploring how to use my art as a tool for migration, especially with DACA. I’ve only done advanced parole once, for a family emergency, and I don’t think it should take someone dying to go back home. So, I’m trying to find opportunities in Mexico that allow me to use art as a vehicle for migrating while expanding my work’s reach.
FD: How do you feel about your relationship to the United States? Do you feel like an American?
MM: No, especially after my trip in May, I really started thinking about what it means to be an “American.” Even in the US, I felt more comfortable calling myself Mexican than anything else because of the culture and the roots I’ve kept close to me. But ultimately, I would like to think of myself as a world citizen. I’d love to be able to move about the world and explore it freely—that would be the most comfortable label for me.
FD: Do you have rituals that guide you in the studio or when you're making work?
MM: Yes, I make a lot of shrines. I don’t know what they mean exactly, but I like to look at things that attract me. I guess I never really thought about them seriously, but over time, these objects, like the sculptures, have revealed more significance. I’m also a hoarder, so I end up with piles of junk and try to make sense of them, manipulating things into altars or assemblages. So maybe the ritual is about collecting and hoarding, picking up trash, and seeing what it becomes.
Miguel Martinez, Blades of Grass (2022-2024). Acrylic on paper, triptych, 30 5/8 x 67 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM. Image credit GC Photography, 2024.
Tell Me How It Ends is on view at GRIMM from September 6 to November 2, 2024.
Miguel Martinez (b. 1991, Celaya, MX) received his BFA from The University of Houston in 2013 and completed his MFA at Hunter College in 2021. He lives and works in Brooklyn. Recent group exhibitions include Love’s Other Name at The Spite Haus in 2023 and Tinieblas, 205 Hudson in 2021. Recent residencies include Mad54 Artist Residency in 2023. Awards include the 2018 Ruth Stanton Memorial Scholarship at Hunter College and the 2013 Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund from the Dallas Museum of Art.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
