“The artist shares his life story, his travels, his passions, his motivations, his heartbreaks, his anger, his love, and his curiosity. When we start to look at the work in that way, then we get to see the ordinariness of Ramírez, of his all-too-human experience.”
— Brooke Davis Anderson, curator of Martín Ramírez, American Folk Art Museum, New York, 2007
"In many ways Ramírez’s story is the farthest thing from being exotic and outsider-y. It is a quintessential American narrative: the tale of hundreds of thousands of people. It is about caretaking, of crossing borders, and of survival. I wish we could acknowledge how un-sensational it is; he was like so many migrants who are leaving, moving, hoping to get work and care for their family.
If we could look at his work as a journal, we might see his production with more clarity. The artist shares his life story, his travels, his passions, his motivations, his heartbreaks, his anger, his love, and his curiosity. When we start to look at the work in that way, then we get to see the ordinariness of Ramirez, of his all-too-human experience. Then what unfolds is how extraordinary his line and form really are. There’s no one who paints and draws like him. There’s no one who sets up the page like him."i
