Portraits: Looking Like A Snack

Kunle F. Martins
January 18 - February 17, 2019

138 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002

Shoot The Lobster is pleased to present Kunle F. Martins’ first solo exhibition: Portraits: Looking Like A Snack, on view through February 17, 2019.

A snack is someone who looks good at the moment[1]. Maybe, for a split second, you see them in a different light, and they look pretty tasty. For his solo presentation at Shoot The Lobster NY, Kunle F. Martins presents nine snack-looking portraits of friends, family, and lovers. This intimate glance paints them all in a slightly different light, one that feels like it’s gone back in time.

Martins sources materials from wherever he can, and all of the canvases in the show are found materials: white cardboard, painted plexiglass, canvas board. They float in a frame with no protective cover, so you can feel the artist’s strokes and finger prints on each face.

For this series of portraits, he took passport and driver’s license photos as studies. These faces stare right out at you and hold your attention. They look a bit more like mugshots than a form of valid identification. And there are a couple of anomalies in the group, including a portrait of the young man himself, Kunle F. Martins, and his partner Jack.

These glances are seen through Martins’ authorial pencil and together, it looks like a whole meal.

Kunle F. Martins (b. 1980, New York, NY) lives and works in New York, NY). Selected group exhibitions include: Bonny Poon, Paris, France; Coney Art Walls, NY; The Hole, NY; Wynwood Walls, Miami, FL; LA MoCA, Los Angeles, CA

[1] Urban Dictionary, entered on January 17, 2016