|
This Is No Fingerpainting - Jorge Martinez: “The young kid from Miami”
By BRANDON DANE
| | (Click to View) |
For the past
seven years,
Jorge Martinez
has produced art work
for major inshore fishing
tournaments in South
Florida. Most recently, he
had a six month solo exhibit
at the International Game
Fish Association (IGFA)
headquarters in Dania Beach.
Currently, he is the inshore artist in charge of the marine
division for Image Graphics, which creates graphics and boat
wraps for the entire fishing industry. His wraps grace boats in
major tournaments in The United States and the Caribbean.
“I’ve been drawing all my life,” Martinez said. “I’ve
been fishing all my life, too. When I was a child, my parents
had a house in The Keys. I’ve always loved the water.”
Martinez has been a professional artist since 1999. He
has never met much resistance. “I started putting paintings
out there and it snowballed,” he said. “I do primarily oil
paintings and watercolors [and] some illustrations.” The 27-
year old Martinez bills himself as the “main guy for inshore
and the back country” and says that he feels fortunate that
he can create his own schedule that enables him “to fish
whenever.”
Yet, probably the most unique thing about the art
that Martinez creates is that each piece is from a mental
image rather than from a photograph as with most artists.
It is thought and experience that Martinez brings to his
paintings. “I’ve developed my style and I think that each of
my paintings is progressively better, but I don’t like to paint
stuff that I haven’t experienced. It looks stiff. The nuances
separate me.”
As with most professional artists, Martinez says that
he is his own harshest critic and he has been that way since
even before he earned his associates degree in art from the
International Fine Arts College in Miami, Fla. “I don’t have
an agent,” he said. “Each painting is my own agent.” His
paintings are displayed at The Redbone Saltwater Gallery
in Islamorada, the Florida Keys. The Gallery, a fundraising
extension of the Redbone Celebrity Fishing Tournaments, has
raised more than nine million dollars during the past 17 years
to “Catch the Cure for Cystic Fibrosis.”
Certainly, Martinez’s youth is a large factor in his
recognition within the marine art community. “[Other artists]
just know me as ‘the young kid from Miami’ [and] will talk
to me about everything except art,” he said. “About the only
artist that I talk about art with is my mentor, Don Ray.”
Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited and the University of
Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Atmospheric and Marine
Science has commissioned a Martinez painting as the
cover for their book which deals with bonefish and tarpon
conservation in South Florida and the Keys. It will appear at
the end of 2006.
For more information on the art works of Jorge
Martinez, call 786-597-3578.
|
;)
