Gabriela Martinez puts her life on display

EL CALDO DE PATO by GABRIELA MARTINEZ

On average, Gabriela Martinez’s linocuts each take 30 hours of work, but “The World Never Let Us Down,” her MFA thesis exhibition that incorporates them, was a life in the making.

“I always wrote stories when I was young, in journals,” Martinez says. “I never thought about making them into art until I got a critique from an artist. At the time, I was making very political art. He saw this other piece that I did. It was a story of, like, a migrant worker, but I personalized it.”

And he loved it, so in the years since, Martinez’s work has been a sort of greatest-hits memoir that chronicles family histories, memorable moments and childhood traditions. She engages the viewer in ways explicitly political art might not—using good storytelling, not preaching.

El Caldo de la Antuquita is a perfect example. In it, Martinez depicts herself, her sister and her Peruvian great-grandmother gathered around a soup pot. Inside the pot, Martinez tells her great-grandmother’s story: how an employer not only raped her, but employed her until the childbirth, when the child was stolen. Having no recourse in the police, she ran away and not long after met a friendly night watchman who later became her husband. El Caldo says a lot, not just about her family, but also about the hostile Latin American social climate—and it does so without resorting to dogma.

In another work, Braulia’s Place, Martinez depicts a cramped Highland Park garage and a neighbor surrounded by her own piecework and looking content.

“She would do some in her house and we would buy clothes out of her garage,” Martinez says. “She probably worked in a sweatshop at the time.”

And then Martinez lets us experience her story for ourselves.

GABRIELA MARTINEZ: THE WORLD NEVER LET US DOWN DUTZI GALLERY | CAL STATE LONG BEACH | 1250 BELLFLOWER BLVD | LONG BEACH 90840 | WED 12-7PM | THURS & MON-TUES 12-5PM | OPENING RECEPTION SUN 5-7PM THROUGH MAY 1

Tags: art, cal state long beach, linocuts, mfa