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Martin Andres Paddack

BiographyColor has quietly impacted Martín Andrés Paddack’s life in all of the places he has been. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Martín spent the first ten years of his life in Latin America, (Puerto Rico, Peru and Uruguay), and two more years subsequently as an adult in Ecuador. Martín has made his home in Washington, D.C. however, where he currently has a studio and has taught and exhibited his work extensively for several years.

Combined with his travels to several continents, the colors of the South American and Caribbean experiences have come to form a vital part of the narrative in his paintings. In his works, he fuses the vibrancy of the tropics and sub-tropics with the more neutral tones of the north in order to create a body of works rooted in the North and South American experience. What emerges is what he refers to as “Color Field Realism,” the dissolve that exists in tension between the real world and an oneiric, pure light. In his works, he reaches for the still-point in which ordinary objects and symbols move from the immediate to the otherworldly, from the quotidian to the contemplative and from the physical to the spiritual. In that still point, the intangible light is born; and roads, streetlamps, old bells, buildings or pure landscapes become catalysts that move us into its realm.

Beyond his work in teaching painting and drawing, Martín is also a professor of architecture, with research into the effects of color in the built environment and sustainability.

Person TypeArtist