Introduction by Walt & Roger Reed
"When we first became aware of work of Sergio Martinez, we wondered how such an accomplished and original artist had so suddenly appeared without prior fanfare.
We learned that he is truly an international artist whose career took a long time evolving, from his origins in Mexico to art training in Paris, and several years with advertising agency work for clients in South and Central America, Spain, France, Switzerland, and the United States.
An assignment from the BBC to do a series of illustrations for the boxed audio tapes of Sherlock Holmes radio programs provided him the opportunity to focus on that gaslight era.
Martinez broadened his artistic repertoire of traditional mediums and even invented his own new rendering technique in an unorthodox combining of tracing vellum, compressed carbon pencils, oil pastels and colored pencils, worked on two sides of the vellum, with a judicious dissolving and blending of the mediums with Turpenoid.
The carefree appearance of the work is a mask. His description of the pure and lovely insecurity and the "98 pain and suffering" through the process while he struggles to find the right metaphor, demonstrates his is no mere virtuoso. Martinez's technical mastery may be mature, but the is keenly aware that the slightest waver of his sinewy line will nuance his interpretation of his subject, and he may execute more than a dozen versions of the picture before he will rest (doubtlessly, he would not use the word satisfied). Finally, the work is a simple and complicated as a flower".
Walt and Roger Reed Ilustration House, NY.
