"I was doing oil paintings on cardboard, and then I spent three years between undergrad and graduate school working in the fields in Washington state and living with my sister. I used produce boxes that my sister would bring from Costco. I would draw on them, do little studies on them - sketches - but it didn't occur to me to use the labels. I would just use the bottom of the box - the "good" part."
"I collected a banana box at a Costco here in LA, and I drew a banana man on the banana box. It wasn't a school assignment; it was just something that I wanted to do. Eventually, I took it to my class and, with the help of my classmates and my faculty committee, we arrived at the conclusion that I was trying to paint the working class. But because of the boxes, it got narrowed down to agribusiness and farmworkers. That's how it all began."
Narsiso Martinez was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1977 and immigrated to the United States at age 20. He earned an MFA in drawing and painting from California State University, Long Beach. His work appears in major museum collections and has been exhibited locally and internationally. He began using discarded produce packing materials around 2016–2017 after years of seasonal fieldwork in Washington and drawing on Costco boxes. He initially drew on box bottoms and later embraced labeled boxes, which focused his imagery on agribusiness and farmworkers. He lives and works in Long Beach, California.
Read at High Country News
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