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María Martínez-Cañas

(Cuban, b. 1960, U.S. resident)

Totem Negro VII, 1991

María Martínez-Cañas weaves totemic designs and organic forms into powerful graphic patterns. Her multi-layered works are webs of cultural metaphor exploring her relationship to the land, religion, and history of her native Cuba through highly charged collages that echo Caribbean rhythms. These images are created by cutting intricate designs into large sheets of Amberlith, a masking material, and carefully interweaving the designs with other negatives. The photographs that result from these meticulously crafted master negatives show traces of ancient and contemporary symbolism.

Martínez-Cañas received her BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art (1982) and her MFA in photography from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago (1984). She was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Grant in 1986, and of a National Endowment for the Arts Photographer’s Fellowship in 1989. Her work has been exhibited throughout the world and is included in prominent public collections, including the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Born in Havana in 1960, Martínez-Cañas currently resides in Miami.

Martínez-Cañas, María. María Martínez-Cañas. Tucson, AZ: Center for Creative Photography, 1991.

Martínez-Cañas, María. María Martínez-Cañas: A Retrospective, April 30-July 28, 2002.

Fort Lauderdale: Museum of Art, 2002.

Martínez-Cañas, María. María Martínez-Cañas: Cronologías, 1990-1993: [exhibition] April 29-June 11, 1994. Los Angeles: Iturralde Gallery, 1994.

Martínez-Cañas, María. María Martínez-Cañas: “Fragmented Evidence”: New Work, April 26-June 1, 1991. Chicago: Catherine Edelman Gallery, 1991.

Martínez-Cañas, María, and Alison Devine Nordström. Black Totems: Photographs. Daytona Beach, FL: Southeast Museum of Photography, 1995.

Martínez Cañas, María, and Edward J. Sullivan. Shadow Gardens Miami: María Martínez Cañas, 2000.