M HKA Ensembles

° 1989

Born in Krasnoyarsk (RU), lives in Moscow (RU).

The artist graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Krasnoyarsk Art School and the Free Workshops Contemporary Art School of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. In his practice, Martins engages with a distinctive set of materials, techniques and subjects that reveal the dynamic tension between civilization and nature. Out of old, reclaimed wooden planks, which still preserve the memory of wild forest and the warmth of a dwelling, he assembles striking and enigmatic zoomorphic sculptures. Using acrylic and graphite pencil, he creates concise monochromatic compositions, wherein the traces of anthropocentric landscape dissolve into the “snowy” whiteness of unfilled background. Martins considers all of his works in different media, including the ones produced for public spaces, as inherently connected parts of a single social and aesthetic project – a meditation on ecologic cataclysms, the ambivalent status of a human being in the system of organic life, regional identity and the unifying potential of art. In 2015, Martins got onto the short list of the Kandinsky Prize in the nomination “Young Artist. Project of the Year” for his joint performance with the artist Igor Lazarev How to Talk about Art to the Siberian City. In 2017, Alexey Martins became the winner of the annual Ruinart Art Patronat Award Contest in the field of contemporary art. Martins’ portfolio includes over 20 group exhibitions and six solo shows. He has participated in the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Young Art, the Main Project of the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art, and the 12th International Festival of Landscape Objects. Martins’ works are found at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Krasnoyarsk Museum Centre and in private collections.