ARIANA MARTINEZ

Ariana Martinez works across print, sculpture, and time-based media to explore processes of sensory perception and spatial navigation. As an artist living with neurological and autoimmune illnesses, Martinez is interested in how physical and cultural environments either accommodate or resist non-normative bodies.  

Of Puerto Rican descent, Martinez's geographic lineage spans Kansas, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Rhode Island, Illinois, and New Jersey, as well as current familial homes in Lajas, Puerto Rico, and the Bronx. Through illegible images, asynchronous sounds, and unstable objects, Martinez confronts feelings of placelessness, disorientation, and the creative place-making that arises from necessity.  

On-site at the James Castle House, Martinez hopes to draw inspiration as much from the material qualities of James Castle’s work as from his ingenious spatial reasoning. Martinez plans to map and respond to the world with visual and tactile language and produce work that invites curiosity about all of our different navigational strategies.