Benlla Martínez


Benlla Martínez (1979, Valencia, Spain) spent the nineties painting graffiti on Valencia’s streets. Only after years of spraying graffiti, working as a DJ, and painting and sculpturing as a “fallero” artisan (in part because he was born and bred in a “fallas” artists’ family), he started his academic career in Faculty of Fines Arts of La Laguna, in Tenerife (Canary Islands). He ended his degree and master in Faculty of San Carlos, Polytechnic University of Valencia. During his degree and up until now, he has participated in many collective exhibitions and has produced several individual exhibitions mixing painting, installation and video disciplines, but developing specially the first one.

 

Benlla’s works have always been characterized by an attentive gaze towards pictorial processes. Even during his initial period, when he was focused on reflecting the sounds and luminescence of different cities, urban and suburban spaces, the emphasis was always put –in spite of this representative intention– on techniques and processes. Precisely, the uses Benlla did of transfer technique to capture these urban visibilities and sonorities, are closely linked to collage and décollage. This took him to consider the possibilities to produce painting works forgetting the traditional act of painting. He inserts himself this way in a long tradition of painting that does not have as an intention, to represent or reflect reality or consciousness, but to indeed, question painting itself.

 

With the passing of years and exhibitions, his paintings have come little by little closer to abstraction, and his compositions are determined by reductionism, which is implied in his intention. The result seems defined by a formula: “composition plus techniques and processes”, as he always says; whatever occurs behind could be seen as “merely anecdotic”. This kind of painting speaks itself, it doesn’t talk about anything more or else.

 

Works of "Subtraction" series here presented imply this commitment. Through a process based on the double sequence of "adhere and extract" painting substance, and using not brushes but acetate sheets, Benlla looks for the fragmentation and voids in the pictorial space. Acetate sheets work so to extract painting, however once Benlla has strip the acetate off, part of painting substance remains, creating textures that will be incorporated in a further painting. This is why he talks about “painting with incorporated past”.

Benlla Martínez

Faded & Overlap I, 2020,

40 x 30 cm

Screen print on paper

 

360,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Faded & Overlap II, 2020,

40 x 30 cm

Screen print on plastic

430,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Scatter points, 2020,

47 x 32 cm

Acrylic, latex and spray on wood

540,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Floating paint

47 X 31 cm

Acrylic, latex and spray on acetate and wood

 

*aluminum framed painting

610,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Green fold, 2020

49 x 31 cm

Acrylic and latex on wood

 

550,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Fold the paint, 2020

70 x 47 cm

Acrylic and latex on wood

1.170,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Distortion act, 2020

40 x 30 cm

Acrylic, latex and spray on acetate and wood

 

 

 

 

*aluminum framed painting

500,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Paint Subtraction: white, 2020

178 x 122 cm

Acrylic and latex on wood

3.880,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Paint Subtraction: black, 2020

175 X 110 cm

Acrylic and latex on wood

3.450,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Reflejos en la calle escondida, 2017,

150 x 120 cm,

Acrylic, ink transfer and spray on wood

2.785,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Moonlight, 2017

100 x 140 cm,

Acrylic, ink transfer and spray on wood

2.165,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Noche tendida, 2015

122 x 122 cm,

Acrylic, latex, ink transfer, pigment and spray on woo

2.310,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Sputnik desde la terraza 35, 2011

80 x 120 cm

Encaustic and spray on wood

1.490,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

La reverberación de Nauman, 2017

120 x 110 cm

Acrylic, latex, pigment, ink transfer and spray on wood

2.050,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Howls in the hall, 2018

180 x 122 cm

Acrylic, latex, pigment, ink transfer and spray on wood

3.405,00 €

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Benlla Martínez

Multiplicidades, 2019

200 x 200 cm

*Four paintings 100 x 100 cm

Quadiptych. Acrylic, latex, pigment, ink transfer and spray on wood

4.760,00 €

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