All Eyes On You: Artist Brandon Martinez

All eyes are on you when you’re looking at the work of Brandon Martinez.

The New Jersey-born-New York-based artists' latest show, ‘All Eyes On You’ is a body of work that grew out of a quote his friend, Bretty JJ wrote for the introduction of his book, Spokesman for the Divine, that focused on his  googly eyed characters looking back at the viewer.

he characters who heavily characterise his work, are taken to a new level in the series, with over ten thousand googly eyes watching you as you walk through the gallery. Focused on crowds and sporting events you see crowds compiled of his signature characters in the rafters watching everything from boxing matches, monster trucks flying to even a Turnstile show, the band he has spent the better half of his life touring with as their loyal merch guy – probably watching more Turnstile shows than anyone else. 

‘All Eyes On You’ is on show for one night only at 355 Bowery in New York from six to nine. His good friends at Carpet made a limited shirt too for the show, you know with the Baltimore greats on your side the show is going to be incredible, go see it if you’re in New York.  

Congrats on the show, how are you feeling about it?

Mixed emotions, I’m nervous, excited, stressed, anxious, but I think that all boils down to butterflies. Normally when you’re doing a show you have a gallery who are helping put on the show but I’m doing it all myself, I found the space, paid for the space, am doing all the hanging and promotion. It’s cool but doing all the back-end stuff makes it so much more stressful. Also, the self-promotion thing is so hard for me, so having to do that is so foreign. But what’s the saying? If you feel butterflies, you have to chase them.

For sure, it’s always just so much scarier when it’s all on you.

Yeah, of course. It’s my first show in a few years and my first show in New York, so I’m nervous about that too. I spent the past few months trying to shop it around to galleries and they’ve been like playing the whole art world game, where they’re like turning their nose up about it. I’m like fuck that, I have the work, I know how to do it so I’m just going to do it. Coming from Turnstile and the punk world being very DIY, it’s like I don’t need anyone to do this, I can do it myself. I’m happy to finally be doing it, it is a body of work that I’ve had done for a year now, so it’s nice I can show it, get it out to the world, then box up that part of my brain and think about the next thing.

Yeah, can we talk about the body of work you’re showing, how did the concept start?

I made a painting a few years ago of a tennis match, and it was the same kind of vibe. When I made it, something clicked where I was like I really fuck with this it’s really cool. It’s like this folk-arty kind of work which I really like, it feels like what I’m trying to present to the world.

Once I made the one of a tennis match, I was like I can make one of a boxing match, horse race, and all these different things. The pieces are all these large gatherings and sporting events where you feel like you’re peering into a world that is very time and place. There’s even a Turnstile show in there, they’re all these different windows.

That’s sick you were able to put a Turnstile show in there.

It’s one of my favourite paintings in the show. It’s cool because it’s what I’ve spent the better half of my life doing, it’s nice to peel back the curtains with it too.

Yeah, exactly, it’s cool to bring a bit more personality into it too because that’s what you’re doing day to day.

Yeah, exactly.

The googly eyes lend themselves really well to the ‘All Eyes On You’ theme of the show.

For sure. I made a zine a few years ago of all the paintings that I had made up to that point. A friend of mine did the intro for it and he wrote, ‘There's a saying “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” But here in this world it’s different. These beautiful beholders are looking in on you. Page by page they observe you.’ With these crowd paintings and large event paintings you’re peeking into this world, but this world is also peeking back at you. It’s tongue and cheek but yeah when you’re looking at this work, there are probably over ten thousand eyes looking back at you.

Yeah, I was going to ask how many googly eyes you think you used for this project.

I would probably say over ten thousand.

Are you just buying them in bulk?

No, I’m stealing them. I have a route of places I know that have them and I go every few months and clear them out. It’s this weird part of me that comes from growing up in punk, skating, and graffiti where I’m like ‘Fuck that I’m not paying for this thing. You’re some giant corporation art store? Nah you’re getting rinsed for this because I need it more than you.’ It’s probably not the best way to do it, but it feels wrong to do it any other way.

How did they come up to be a part of your work?

I’ve always been making art and drawing. When I was growing up, I was always the dude who could draw something by looking at it and have it be fairly decent but I always struggled with making faces, I would always draw everything perfect and then get to the face and be like the eyes suck. One day I had this idea of this character, I always had spray paint around and was like, I could make this character and stick googly eyes on it, and it be this kind of abstract thing and I don’t need to draw eyes anymore, perfect. I’m too critical of myself when I spend a lot of time on something. If I spend two weeks on a drawing and it doesn’t look perfect, I’m so bummed. This whole world of having these loose paintings feels a lot better, especially when I’m not critical of how the eyes look. I’m just like this looks a lot better, feels more in tune with how I handle myself and the things that I believe in. I think when people take themselves too seriously and spend all this time trying to curate something it feels unnatural. When things feel the best for me is when people are loose and going based off feeling.

Oh, for sure. Are you mostly using spray paint and markers for your work?

Yeah, a lot of it is spray paint, markers, and acrylic paint, I sometimes use airbrush when it calls for it. Pretty much any material that I can find that works well. When I wasn’t working Turnstile stuff, I was doing construction where I was rebuilding houses and doing all these things, so I have a lot of plaster in paintings to give it texture, which comes from that. I’m sure there are other ways to build texture with different kinds of paint, but I know how to do it from a construction standpoint so I’m like I’ll do it like that.

It isn’t a part of this series, but I really like the crucifixes you do. It’s cool having your characters which are loose and somewhat cheeky looking with this serious  religious imagery.

Yeah, that is an ever-going series of mine that I will always be making and going back to. It’s one of those images that stands out in my brain. Even if I have some time to doodle, I’ll bust out a notepad and I’m always drawing these crucifixes. I think that catholic art is the pinnacle, it’s so amazing and so packed with emotion but I could never paint like that, I don’t have the skills of this old master. I’m always drawn to the crucifixion because it’s such a powerful story whether or not you believe in it.

Dude, for sure. I was just in Malta with my family, I would just go into churches in these small villages and looking up at the art everywhere is amazing.

Yeah, you just go into these little churches in those countries and they’re all a museum in themselves. 

Seriously, I was blown away continuously.

All of Italy is breathtaking. Rome is the Crème de la crème, it’s the top of that mountain but every spot you see is breathtaking, you’re like how did people do this, there is no way people just did this.

It’s amazing. 

Yeah, the set up too and the longevity of it all, things don’t last a hundred years now.

Yeah, and these are hundreds of years old.

And it looks like it was painted yesterday. They didn’t even have paint in the way we do now either, they were mixing pigments out of things that they found in nature.

It’s wild. Do you have anything else you wanted to say about the show?

My work is what I’m hyped on, as I said earlier I would describe it as folk art, which even though it's an umbrella term, the painters who create weird folk art are the people I look up to. These fringe of society people, who are self-taught and are like ‘I want to make things, I don’t care if I’m this renowned artist but I have this desire to create and I’m going to make something the only way I know how.’ It’s this expression that blows out into them and that’s the way I’d describe my stuff too because it isn’t technically good. I just want to create something that’s unique, true to myself and authentic to what I believe in.