FRIEZE LOS ANGELES: LILIAN MARTINEZ

OCHI is pleased to participate in the fourth edition of Frieze Los Angeles, to take place at the Santa Monica Airport from February 29 through March 3, 2024. The gallery will feature a solo presentation of new works by Mexican-American artist Lilian Martinez in Stand F 05. Curated by Essence Harden, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager of the California African American Museum and co-curator of the 2025 Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum, this year’s Focus section brings together a diverse group of artists who map Ecologies—of the environment, community, urban landscape, and labor systems.

Lilian Martinez makes paintings that depict bright and playful scenes of women at leisure. In alignment with Essence Harden’s ecologies, this new cycle of paintings explores a concept Martinez refers to as “boundless femininity,” one that gestures towards a world of agency, comfort, creativity, and abundance. Untethered from obligations to others, Martinez’s ladies practice mindful indulgence, follow their intuition, and live their best lives. With generous curves and radiant brown skin, these femme figures visualize their pleasures before manifesting them into reality—they admire sculptures in open air art museums, relax at home with their pets, get dressed to go out, muse over produce at their local farmers market, or nibble watermelon in the nude as the sun dries their clothes. Each vignette offers a quotidian narrative with unexpected details—a glass of green juice with lipstick on the rim, calla lilies in a pink bucket, a lobster, blue tabi Mary Janes, a woven rug pattern that features tiny pineapple, avocado, passion fruit, and coconut. Embodying a collective desire for brown women to occupy space peacefully, Martinez’s paintings proffer positive representations of bodies like her own as they celebrate inclusivity and classlessness.