May 15-June 28, 2008 Fairfield Art Center, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin The art of Sandra and Wence Martinez defies easy stereotype. It is a place of confluence, where distinctly different cultures, mediums and approaches are unified into a visual language that is simultaneously contemporary and traditional. Large-scale paintings and weavings juxtapose contemporary design with the timeless art of the symbol. The symbolic imagery looks as if it might be ancient hieroglyphics but is, instead, a product of Sandra Martinez's creative imagination and contemporary art training. Her early artistic influences include contemporary painters such as Keith Haring, known for his colorful, figurative paintings. This world of conceptual influence collided with a 500 year old weaving tradition when the two artists met, married and became lifetime collaborators. Their collaborative work is a tribute to strong design. Pattern, repetition and symmetry dominate the weavings and paintings. In weavings like "Matizado", Mr. Martinez creates a timeless quality, rhythmically moving the viewers eye on both the horizontal and vertical axes. The artist conveys a sense of depth and complexity through a figure/ground relationship that is deceptively simple in appearance. Works like "Arbolitos", with its two color /two value schematic, ignore the traditional hierarchical shape relationships common to western painting. In "Arbolitos", both positive and negative shapes carry equal visual weight and the viewer's eye dances back and forth between three black circles in the center and red, plant based images on the outer edges. The work provides a Zen-like balance between large and small, light and dark, and organic and geometric form. The paintings in Presence use bold, elemental designs to explore the interdependent relationship between human beings and the land upon which their survival depends. In "Shrine", a form suggestive of both the human figure and plant-life is surrounded by tiny objects floating in space like feathery seeds or far-away stars. The bottom section of the painting is filled with faint, ghost-like symbols; roots suggestive of literal and figurative images that dance underneath a plant, providing a clear picture into active happenings under the surface. The viewer is reminded that the stability of all living things depends on substructures or support and on the paradoxical, interdependent relationship between chaos and order. Paradox is at the heart of this work, which represents both past and present, interconnection and independence. The strong graphic designs and large scale of the work offers an almost regal command, demanding that the viewer spend time with each work and rewarding those who do. In the words of Leonardo da Vinci, "There are... those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see." The art of Sandra and Wence Martinez asks the viewer to be one who sees. The works are beautiful but not easy, not rooted in one place, one time or one identity, but instead, in a timeless, quiet moment of presence. Shan Bryan-Hanson, Curator, Fairfield Art Center