CHRONOLOGY

1964
Born in Habana, Cuba to Edilia Maximina Celaya Venereo and Marcos Enrique Fernando Martínez Rodriquez on June 9th, 1964, six years after the Cuban Revolution.

1970
Father leaves for Madrid, Spain.

1972
Emigrates with his mother and younger brother, Carlos (b. 1967), to join his father in Madrid. The challenges of exile, including the need to change schools several times within the span of two years, mark the beginning of his search for his place in the world through drawing.

1973
Youngest brother, Fernando, is born. Collects papers for a recycling company. Begins to experiment with paint.

1975
Moves to Puerto Rico with his family. Takes on an apprenticeship with painter Bartolomé Mayol.

1976
Attends the University of Puerto Rico High School where he meets his mentor, Manuel Alonso, a trained socio-psychologist and the school’s principal.

1978
Writes fiction and essays with a philosophical leaning influenced by Nietzsche, and begins experimenting with lasers.

1982
Graduates valedictorian of his high school class. Studies applied physics at Cornell University. Paints in oils and acrylics and begins his first artist’s sketchbook with notes about his work, his poetry, and life.

1986
Graduates from Cornell University and enrolls in a PhD program in Quantum Electronics at the University of California at Berkeley.

1987
Works at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island. Continues his doctoral studies in Quantum Electronics at Berkeley, while attempting to pursue a graduate degree in art at the same university, a degree he abandons only eight months later to devote his efforts to making his own artwork.

1989
Moves to San Francisco, California. Works at Coherent Medical, a laser company. Patents inventions on laser delivery systems. Publishes his first book of poetry, Guthrie.

1990
Spends three days at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse at the end of which he decides to leave science for art. Resigns his post at Coherent, moves to a converted warehouse in Oakland, and supports himself by selling his artwork in the parks of San Francisco.

1991
Travels to Africa and Europe with his friend, Brian Mountford. Publishes Poems for the Bed.

1992
Has his first solo exhibition at the Sunnyvale Art Center, California. Moves to Santa Barbara to attend the graduate art program at the University of California. Receives the Regents Fellowship and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Fellowship. Studies with artist Harry Reese. Mourns the death of two of his Berkeley professors, Joan Brown and Silvia Lark. Destroys most of his early work. Writes about his own work: “In the summer of 1992, I was trying to connect with my work by dismembering it. I slashed through canvases and created inventories of the findings. Then in regret, I would embrace the paintings and carefully sew them back together.” First interested in Joan of Arc, the subject of a number of his later works.

1993
Is introduced to the writings of poet Paul Celan. Begins the Black Paintings series which he describes as follows: “The vitality of black, flowers, and the small objects that emerged on the paintings were a way to undecorate by decorating and emptying by choosing what to put in. Trapped in these dichotomies, love, topical but controversial, became the main inspiration and the target to this series.” Develops an interest in Zen philosophy.

1994
Exhibits Black Paintings at the University of Art Museum, Santa Barbara, California. Receives MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, California with honors and as recipient of the Art Affiliates Award. Attends Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine where he meets Donald Baechler and Allen Ginsberg. Begins Paintings for Company series, which he describes as follows: “In them, the value of the particular and of silence remained, yet these works expected for me a new level of candor and intimacy.” Accepts a position as Assistant Professor at Pomona College and transforms an old newspaper pressroom into his studio, where he also lived.

1995
Joins Dorothy Goldeen Gallery where he exhibits his White Paintings. Frances K. Pohl describes the work in the exhibition’s catalogue: “These paintings are silenced, rather than silent; they are brief attempts at communication quickly smothered by layers of dense whiteness, taut sheets upon which rest seemingly innocent, at times playful, objects but beneath which lie disturbing memories.” A number of works from this series are also exhibited in a group show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport, California. Travels to London and further researches the history of Joan of Arc.

1996
Has first solo exhibition in New York at Tricia Collins/Grand Salon.  The Museum of Contemporary Art, Hawaii and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York acquire his work. Becomes very interested in the iconography of martyred saints, and notions of sacrifice and redemption. Makes first works inspired by Joan of Arc, a series of twenty heart drawings, which in turn inspire his ‘blankets’ described as made “to prevent her [Jeanne d’Arc] from burning.” In the catalogue accompanying his 1996 exhibition at Daniel Arvizu Gallery he states “Jeanne d’Arc is about the unknowable.” Destroys all work related to Joan of Arc at the gallery where the work is exhibited. Moves to Venice Beach, California.

1997
Is first inspired by the subject of St. Catherine and exhibits related works at Burnett Miller Gallery. Meets Alexandra Williams. Joins his poetry and his artwork for the first time in an exhibition. Joins Griffin Gallery. Visits Berlin and Hegel’s tomb for first time. Describes the importance of Hegel to his work in an interview with MA Greenstein: “I am interested in Hegel’s ideas of reconciliation of opposites, the dialectic, which influences my disbelief in partial truths.” Makes a series of photographs inspired by a poem he wrote while in Berlin.

1998
Has first solo exhibition in Europe at Galerie Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany. Receives the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art Here and Now Award, for which a work is chosen for acquisition. Founds Whale & Star Press, which publishes concise and accessible books in art, poetry, art practice and critical theory through five different series.

1999
Marries Alexandra Williams. Publishes notes regarding 1999 work: “In the new works (as in all the others) there is imagery that should be understood to be surrogates of the figure and the spirit. These works are not about birds, or heads or flowers. Maybe this is true of many works. All these things are excuses, vehicles to get at specific moments that exist as artworks but that point beyond the artworks.” Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum acquire his work.

2000
Continues to use the figure as a central part of his work and gives importance to landscape imagery. Shows work in solo gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Monterrey, Mexico, and group exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore. Stops doing most group exhibitions.

2001
Exhibits sculptures, paintings, and photographs in inaugural show, Coming Home, at new space for Griffin. All works in exhibition are acquired by Sammlung Rosenkranz. Publishes first artist book, October, to accompany exhibition. Includes poem of same name. Recent photographic works are acquired by the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work is the subject of a traveling museum exhibition organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Honolulu, Hawaii, featuring work from 1992-2000. Introduces landscape imagery in most recent paintings. Receives the Hirsch Grant.  His daughter Gabriela is born in November.

2002
Presents part of a new body of work, the October Cycle, at Danese Gallery in New York, which consists of dark and reductive emulsified tar paintings that meditate on the nature of existence.  In collaboration with Griffin Editions and Mark Hasencamp, Press publishes artist book, Guide, which features text and photographs.  Sheldon Museum of Art acquires Thing and Deception (1997). 

2003
October Cycle is the subject of a traveling exhibition organized by the Sheldon Museum of Art and travels to the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.  Son Sebastián is born in April. Begins a new body of work that explores the presence of death in life through the motif of a boy in a winter landscape.  Presents parts of this new body of work at solo gallery exhibitions in San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Resigns his tenured faculty position at Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University.

2004
Explores the implications of human consciousness through the boy in the winter landscape, presenting this new work at solo gallery exhibitions in Aspen and in Sydney, Australia.  Presents lectures at the Aspen Institute and the American Academy in Berlin.  Artistic process is the subject of an in-depth exhibition organized by the CU Art Museum in Boulder, Colorado.  Learns that his friend and mentor, Leon Golub, has died while in residence at the University of Colorado and paints large-scale portrait of him as a memorial.  Collaborates with the Berliner Philharmonie on Schneebett, a complex large-scale environment that reflects on Beethoven’s deathbed.  Moves his family from Los Angeles to Delray Beach, Florida.

2005
Begins a new body of work in response to the new environment that features a boy near the ocean, parts of which are presented at solo gallery exhibitions in San Francisco, Berlin and Los Angeles.  The Oakland Museum of California organizes a ten-year survey of works on paper and the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University organizes a survey of photographs.  Presents a lecture on the relationship of science and art at the Education Summit, Hope Center, Richmond, Virginia.  Son Adrián is born in September.

2006
Collaborates with the Cowboy Junkies on a book project that documents the band’s twenty-year journey.  Presents a lecture on art and compassion at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.  Invited by the Sheldon Museum of Art to reinstall and reinterpret Coming Home and the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig exhibits Schneebett. 

2007
Presents two environments of large-scale paintings, one as a solo gallery exhibition in Taura, Japan and the other, entitled Nomad, at the Miami Art Museum.  Exhibits work that is influenced by the poetry of Osip Mandelstam and Harry Martinson at solo gallery exhibitions in New York, Aspen, and San Francisco.  The Boy Raising His Arm (2007) is included in an international exhibition in Limerick, Ireland curated by Klaus Ottmann and installed in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Church.  Appointed University of Nebraska Visiting Presidential Professor and delivers the first of six public lectures.  He and his family move back to Los Angeles.  Starts a blog on August 24 called Bad Time for Poetry.

2008
Injured while carving The Rail, a large-scale wood sculpture.  Publishes selected poems of Osip Mandelstam.  Represents and reinterprets aspects of two previous large-scale projects at a solo gallery exhibition in Sydney and in a solo gallery exhibition in New York presents an exhibition of a single work revealed in twelve parts that emerges from the pictorial space forged through his process of writing a novel.  Presents an environment of thirteen paintings, two sculptures, and one work on paper at LA Louver in Venice Beach, California.  Family returns to Delray Beach, Florida.

2009
Exhibits nine paintings that explore the fragility of hope at the Sara Meltzer gallery exhibition in New York.  Ends blog on May 25.  The Boca Raton Museum of Art organizes an exhibition of nineteen works from the private collection of the filmmaker Martin Brest.  Presents a project of sketches, writings and an environment of eleven paintings that is inspired by the writings on ethics of Emmanuel Levinas at a solo gallery exhibition in Aspen.  Publishes the selected poetry of Anna Akhmatova and The Blog:  Bad Time for Poetry, which documents the blog posts.  Under the auspices of the University of Nebraska Visiting Presidential Professorship presents “The Prophet” at the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska and “On Painting” at the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska.  In December opens new studio in Miami, called Whale & Star, which is concerned with the role art has in life, spirit and community.

2010
Develops The Whale & Star Lecture Project, in which twenty scholars, curators, and critics over a three-year period are invited to present lectures on art and ethics and the inaugural Summer Workshop.  Presents a series of paintings influenced by Martin Heidegger, Anna Akhmatova and Robert Frost at Simon Lee Gallery in London.  The Museum of Biblical Art in New York organizes an exhibition that explores the figure and landscape motif through the lens of biblical narratives and concurrent with that project also presents four monumental paintings at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York, the world’s largest cathedral.  The University of Nebraska Press publishes a twenty-year survey of collected writings, lectures and interviews.