“My artwork is intentionally raw. I like to use a lot of different materials and have rough-cut edges on the canvas . . . no painting is alike as each has symbolic patterns and encrypted messages hidden within it.”
—Móyòsóré Martins
Raised in Lagos, Nigeria by a Brazilian father and a Nigerian mother, Móyòsóré Martins is a self-taught mixed-media artist. He blends his traditional Yoruba cultural roots with his contemporary vision of art through his use of paintbrush and pencil. Forbidden by his father to create or study art, Martins spent his college years in Ghana and the Ivory Coast studying computer science. He then immigrated to New York City in 2015 to further pursue his artistic ambitions.
Martins’s artwork combines figurative, abstract, and narrative elements drawn from his journey from Nigeria to his large Bronx studio. His work is deeply symbolic and frequently features cultural and personal iconography – from traditional Yaruba figures to contemporary plastic toy statues. Martins’s richly textured paintings feature bold brushstrokes, thick oil paint, drawings, scribbles, collaged materials, and text; as the artist says, “the word ‘Why?’ is seen in a lot of the work because it leaves you asking the same question.”
