Gene Paul Martin

(b. 1989, Manila)

Gene Paul Martin is a graduate of the Far Eastern University, Manila (BFA Painting, 2013).

Gene Paul Martin’s paintings traverse laterally and longitudinally across the surface of the canvas aiming to purify painting’s heavy task to illustrate naturally what the eyes can see, has been the trademark of abstraction since its inception, a cathartic purge to surrender to the medium’s limited material convention albeit with the ironic twist to actually revivify its terminal state via sublimation. In some unique cases, the challenge to fuse representational elements with the iconography of abstraction becomes the attraction to avoid the traps of material discourse by diving downwards into the depths of the subconscious. 

Martin confronts the problems posed by the history of painting, creating a spectacular evisceration of what we do know of our modernist past into painterly amalgamations of ethno-futurism and animism, magical realism and mutant abstraction, as well as a haunting-ontological aesthetic on the idea of man. 

Aside from his practice as an artist, Martin also curates and organizes exhibitions through his platform Sampaguita Projects run out of his studio in Project 8.