All I Need is You, 2008
Ongoing works/performances using various materials like fabric, thread, color pencil and paper.

This series of works/performances are influenced by my experience of running through nature especially along the ocean. I am interested in the subtlety of the movements my body makes and the connection with the horizon.









Take My Hand 'Cause We're Walking Out of Here, 2007
Performance using yellow paint on paper

This series of works/performances are about body movement influenced by my running and yoga practice. I am interested in the subtlety of the movements my body makes.




Fly Straight Into My Heart, 2007
Performance using green gouache on paper





Present (for Australia), 2007
Site-specific installation at SNO, Sydney, Australia
Zuli blue paper made in Australia







Capturing Minds, 2007
Performance and installation at 80WSE Galleries, New York University, New York, NY
Color balloons

In Capturing Minds, I invite viewers to participate by selecting colored balloons of their preference and blow them up as much as they want. Capturing Minds was originally created last fall during an informal performance with my fellow artists residents and staff at LMCC's Workspace Residency. The idea was to make a simple gesture with an everyday object and create an experience of dialogue, interaction, change and joy.







Where Soul Meets Body, 2007
Performance and site-specific installation
Orange paint on wall, orange clothing

The performance was originally part of the Open Studio event at LMCC's Workspace Residency. I painted one of my studio walls in orange. The orange wall related to the orange clothing I wore during the opening night. My goal was to make a connection between the architecture of my studio and myself. The studio was the place where I spent nine months thinking, creating and sharing with other artists.





Sweet Like Candy to My Soul, 2007
Performance and installation at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
Two turquoise folding chairs, Felix Gonzalez-Torres book





Crash Into Me, 2007
Site-specific installation at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
Fluorescent orange and hot pink ribbons

In Crash Into Me, I wanted to play with the architecture of the gallery. I used a subtle material (ribbon) to connect two columns and dynamically change the gallery space. The two ribbons also commented on the idea of duality that I frequently use in my work.





The Weather is Sweet, 2007
Performances through New York City (winter, spring, summer, fall)
Collaboration with Lynne Harlow

The Weather is Sweet is a series of performances where we use our bodies to trace two lines throughout New York City at different times of the year to create a dialogue between two artist friends, and the environment and people around them.
Winter: Exchange of objects; Summer: Meeting along the Hudson River.

Heart on Fire, 2006
Performance and site-specific installation at H29, Brussels, Belgium
Collaboration with Matthew Deleget

Heart on Fire consisted of a short run through the Parc de Bruxelles Warande, during which we wore monochrome running clothes — I was in orange and Matthew in red. I started from one point of the park and Matthew from the opposite side. We ran towards each other until we met and ended the run with a kiss. Documentation of the performance -- maps, photos, etc. -- were exhibited in the gallery. We also created an installation/performance consisting of a runner's aid station, which is usually a long table filled with cups of water. In our installation, the aid station consisted of a table with a grid of cups filled with the drinks that were consumed by the public during the opening.

Corner of Your Lips, 2006
White cotton thread on hot pink archival board

"Rossana Martinez makes playful installations using a variety of different everyday mediums. Corner of Your Lips is a wall-based work, featuring 20 randomly placed bright pink panels, each with two small right angles sewn using white cotton. These fluro pink, flat bricks, clustered together, seem to climb, expand and explode across the gallery wall."

—Danny Lacy, Curator, New Work at Ocular Lab Inc., Melbourne, Australia




Glow, 2006
Performance and site-specific installation at Hunter College/Times Square Galleries, NY
Fluorescent orange spray paint on wall
Edition of 1,000, fluorescent orange spray paint on white paper, 4 x 6 inches each

Glow is a hybrid project where performance and architecture are transformed into painting. To create Glow, I wore a black dress and heels.  Starting in one corner of the space, I walked around the perimeter of the room holding a can of spray paint while continuously spraying paint on the wall until the can of paint was completely empty.

The visual result was an installation consisting of undulating and overlapping orange lines.  The intention of the work was to question what is considered a contemporary painting or what is a painted object.  As part of the project, I created an edition of 1,000 works on paper consisting of fluorescent orange spray paint on white paper. The edition was stacked in the center of the space and made available free of charge to all visitors. 

 

Laughing Lovers, 2006
Site-specific installation at Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY
Carpet, paint, bean bag chairs

Laughing Lovers was made specifically for the exhibition Design/Build at Metaphor Contemporary Art.  Laughing Lovers consisted of three circles – an orange circle (wall and carpet) and two bean bags, one red and one burgundy. Viewers were invited to interact and seat on the bean bags and become part of the installation.

“In her installation Rossana Martínez makes use of a finely tuned appreciation of the use of scale in interior space. Responding directly to the gallery she creates a space within it that is at once welcoming, playful, and unexpected, softening the formality that is so often associated with the exhibition of art.  Martínez typically employs common and everyday materials in her site specific arrangements, and here proposes a heightened, and perhaps relaxing, aesthetic engagement with the off the rack carpet, wall paint, and colorful bean bag chairs that comprise this work. The contemplation of art offers the viewer a fleeting sense of refuge from day to day concerns, an escape from the ordinary into a world of the mind's devising. Turning this idea on it's head Martínez offers a refuge as art, encouraging the viewer to take their shoes off and share the experience.”

—Julian Jackson, Curator, Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY