1935 Dictionary for Boys and Girls

1935 Dictionary for Boys and Girls

Sandra’s father gifted her the first book she painted on. He thought it a valuable antique, she discovered it was not and used it as a journal while caring for him expanding her long relationship to books. When he passed away, loads of books came to Sandra. Engineering manuals, dictionaries, engine design, repair and encyclopedias. All of which are laden with the power of pre-internet study...and Dad.

“Painting on old book pages frees me from potential blocks surrounding precious materials. The books themselves are past their prime in the antique market - when they come to me I gift them another life. I handle fragile fragments of someone else’s work, enshrined in shadow boxes, they are laden with paint, dirt and layers of meaning...they take another bow. Whatever remains readable is a nod to chance, everyone’s collaborator.”

Sandra Martinez’s symbolist works on paper are intuitive and meditative. Taking inspiration from surrealists, her process begins with loose contour drawings that can be read as abstracted human, plant, and shelter forms.

Gestural washes with a minimal palette build up in the work. Some areas are rubbed, erased, cut, collaged, or laden with dirt. The resulting surfaces range from sparse to thick.

Her work on her father’s books continues, along with her use of Hogarth Monograph pages, Dante’s Inferno, German periodicals and whatever else happens to appear as a gift or by chance as in Tyvek, which she paints on for her larger works.

Torrent is the first work on the Dictionary for Boys and Girls.