December 4, 2021 through February 26, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4, 6-8 pm.
Bermudez Projects is proud to present Robert Martin: TWO BUCKS, the third exhibit in our gallery’s new installation-based space dedicated solely to BIPOC + LGBTQIA artists.
In TWO BUCKS, Martin creates an imagined queer space which stakes claim over certain Midwestern dive bar aesthetics. The installation – painted works, designed ephemera, and interventions with genuine memorabilia – is a manifestation of what is missing, or perhaps desired, from our ruralscape.
Martin adds, “I wonder what the intersection of queer representation and rural American aesthetics might look like, and if these fantasy venues might be perceived as ‘safe’ spaces or pits of contention. This project operates multidirectionally in time, revealing a utopian vision for queerness in rural North America, and reinterpreting memories of places left behind.”
Robert Martin’s works bring forward the myriad aspects of queerness in the pedagogy of Wildlife art. By utilizing already established iconography and then tilting the narrative through the inclusion of queer symbology, the artist subverts the visual language of this romanticized genre of American art. According to the artist, “Queerness is not absent from the American hinterland. In fact, I see it everywhere. The trouble comes from a lack of acknowledgment, and the bleeding of human heteronormative perceptions over the natural, Fluid environment.” Through subtle and flamboyant imagery, Martin aims to return queerness to rural America.
Robert Martin (b. 1994) earned their BFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin-Stout (2017), and their MFA in Studio Practices at the University of Colorado-Boulder (Painting & Drawing, 2021). They have exhibited at GOCA in Colorado Springs, Sierra Arts Gallery in Reno, IDS Tower in Minneapolis, the Valley in Taos, and along Colorado’s Front Range. They were a 2020 Rough Gems Curator at Union Hall in Denver, a 2019 NEST Grant recipient at CU-Boulder, and their work was featured in UW-Stout’s 2017 Journal of Student Research. In 2021, Martin was awarded the New American Paintings’ Emerging Artist Grant. The artist lives and works in Denver, CO.