Sho Martinez half-poses among his artist's props at his studio.

ome in and let the magic spill out,” Sho Martinez said as we walked into his new studio.

Martinez is a painter—the most sought-after career if you like “cold,” “poor” or “starving” as personal descriptors. His recently acquired studio space comes connected to the gallery that will show his work, a coveted situation in the art world.

The Nouveaux Alt Gallery used to be the day-care area at Art Space. Now it is Patrick Davis’ home and gallery. Martinez rents a room that he uses as his paint-ing palace. Davis and Martinez plan to show only their work until the glitzy newness wears into a matured show space.

The works they plan to show go fairly well with the posh name of the gallery.

Nouveaux Alt hopes to open this month at Art Space, the old Rubber Cement Company building located at 353 W. 200 South, in Suite 100.
Dan Davis, Patrick’s father and co-owner of the gallery, said he was excited for the new venture as he busied himself with numerous tasks.
Patrick Davis is a furniture maker. A few years ago he got into carpentry, in part out of boredom and in part due to his brother’s influence as a cabinetmaker.

Patrick Davis has a workshop and a couple of eager cronies who provide the environment for the furniture production. He is the type of man who really doesn’t understand why a person would put linoleum over a wood floor, no matter how used and worn it is.

There is intentional use of layers in his work. An armoire painted with a slate blue is scratched down to the beautiful wood underneath. “I want it to appear used,” Patrick Davis said. “I try to think of all of the ways people can use the furni-ture, like a butcher block,” he said, showing the markings of descrip-tive ubiquitous knife wounds.

He gets a lot of his material from an old architectural salvage yard. “I try to use at least one used item in every one of my pieces,” he said.
The gist of both artists condones a person who is not afraid of im-perfections.

“I want to portray life as it is,” Martinez said while describing the signified roles of toys as pimps and drunkards. Though these paintings are his diaries devoted to personal experience, he has no trouble turn-ing them over to the public. “I don’t like to get into too much what they are about. People usually find different things anyway,” Martinez said.

The pieces are often of a dif-ficult subject. One piece is named, “People need to stop trying to cure cancer.” Martinez believes people are not entitled to life, but live in a natural system.

Martinez goes out and looks around, but art constantly con-sumes him. He reads mostly art history and art theory and spends the majority of his time painting.

“Sometimes I sleep here,” he said, referring to the days when he just can’t stop working. He tries not to work drunk. “I get sick of fix-ing things in the morning.”

Though his paintings are layered up and scraped down, he said it is really easy to overwork a painting.

Martinez is still painting and working on framing his finished pieces for the gallery’s opening. The gallery is still being painted and the perfect lights are still being installed. Soon, more work will find a temporary home in the there.

Expect it to open within the next couple of weeks. A grand opening reception will come later.
stephanie@red-mag.com