Sueños de Turquesa is a solo exhibition by Gabo Martinez, presented by Deasil and hosted by Front Gallery.

Gabo Martinez makes ceramics, works on paper, and functional vessels inspired by indigenous Mexican and Native American visual traditions.  Martinez works with terracotta clay, used over millennia by craftspeople to produce brick pavers and humble utensils, coated in vibrant glazes reminiscent of the Mexican colonial towns where she spent her childhood summers. The intricate aesthetic of Martinez’s work often describes its own making, as well as the complex history of labor and production in Mexican craftwork. She draws upon both traditional and contemporary motifs, using sgraffito to incise patterns and text into the undulating surface of each form.  Her large, colorful relief prints represent another reductive process that echoes the carved details in the ceramics. "Sueños de Turquesa” translates to “turquoise dreams,” and refers to turquoise as a humbly spiritual material with aspirational and transformative possibilities. 

Gabo Martinez was born in Tarimoro, Guanajuato, MX and earned her BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Ceramics from Texas State University in 2018. Her work has been exhibited at Conduit Gallery (Dallas, TX);  Texas State Galleries (San Marcos, TX);  Rockport Center for the Arts;  and the Historic Pearl Brewery (San Antonio, TX.)
She currently lives and works in Houston, Texas.