Colin Martinez (b. 1999 Columbus, OH) is a visual artist and landscape architect who lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Colin Martinez (b. 1999 Columbus, OH) is a visual artist and landscape architect who lives and works in Chicago, IL.
“Soil, Air, Reverence” is Colin Martinez’s first published volume of photographs. Through a series of short, poem-like notes, Martinez constructs a narrative spanning half a decade of cross-country travel. Rather than pulling the reader into sweeping landscapes, Martinez focuses on the idiosyncratic and often overlooked details of the land and its people. The soft, black-and-white images in this volume capture small, understated vignettes – moments of quiet observation that, when connected, reveal an aching specificity to the places they depict. In the book’s opening note, Martinez writes: "All around the country, hidden in bathrooms, on trees and under tables, trapped in cars and in basements, blossoming on corners and in motel rooms, life bubbles and protrudes. / Born in a sinister land, on ground that, not unlike its desperate vegetative creation, dries and splits and cracks. / Born of a love that scratches itself to the surface – one that seeps out of tight containers and into brain and veins and hearts." Through this intimate lens, the book becomes a meditation on movement, memory, and the quiet persistence of life across the American landscape.
Images captured & printed in the United States of America
Copyright© 2024 Colin Martinez