Meet Artist Ricardo Ernesto

 My full name is Ricardo Ernesto Martinez Estrada. I keep my first two names which I use as my stage name which is Ricardo Ernesto. I was born and raised in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, one of the most violent cities in Mexico. I was born on March 1, year 2000. I am the youngest of 3 brothers who are twins. My interest in plastic art perhaps began in the period from 4 - 7 years old. I remember 4 approaches to art very clearly, the first I can tell that as any child would draw on the walls of his house, from an early age without knowing it I had many approaches to the type of art that I practice today. 

O-147 resilient innocence by Ricardo Ernesto Martinez acr 14x11 $400

Between the age of 5 there was a friend of my father who made boasts with sheets of paper. I tried to see how he did them and I managed to make one later. From there my interest in origami was born, which was nourished by books. The last approach was with my toys and clay. Dad saw in me that I liked to mold things and instead of playing with the sand, he decided to get me something similar to clay but less expensive. I got very logical shapes. The last approach I had was in the visits to my maternal grandmother's house, who was waiting for me with colored pencils and coloring books. She taught me to color without going out of the line, with discipline and tenderness at the same time. 

I was also very interested in reading and in elementary school I liked to write stories. I had a participation that took me to a second place. I kept drawing like any other child, until suddenly I began to notie more dexterity and inted to reporduce more complicated fugures. There was a time when I had a period of drawing only hands. 

I think that was my academy. I had advice from teachers in high school. At 13 I had my first participation but I did not have any mention on the podium. At the age of 15 entering high school, I was very interested in returning to another participation because I felt that my skills had improved.  I achieved my first realistic work when I was in that period. I had the notions to be a drawing instructor of basic notions. I already made portraits. 

O-146 Watercolor 1 by Ricardo Ernesto Martinez wc 11x8 $200

At that time I had to walk a stretch to get to my house, I did it in the company of my best friend. I remember that day 3 individuals assaulted us in front of a community center. That day I thought a lot about what had happened to us and I made the decision to open the door to give free workshops in the community center because I thought that my community of children and young people full of dreams and aspirations could not keep getting lost on those kinds of paths. I thought that the people who assaulted us were not that old and if they were, I know that they had once been children.

I was a workshop facilitator for 2 years at the same time I that I had another space in the high school that I was studying. I helped professor Alejandro Ramirez Flores and he guided me to structure a work plan for my classes and his classes. He was promoted to cultural supervisor and left me in charge of the painting and drawing workshop of that institution. 

In 2015 I obtained third place in a drawing and painting contest at the state level, in 2016 and 2017 my participation was absent because the institution could not take the works due to lack of budget. The year 2018 arrives and I come of age. I get a temporary job in a construction site as an assistant and then another night job in a supermarket to leave the first one and cover my expenses. In 2018 I decided to take my participation personally to be sure that on this occasion I would participate, along with the work of 2 of my students. I made a 4 hour trip to the capital city with little money but a lot of will. I remember staying with no money that night. I had nowhere to stay, called a friend from back then, Fernando Caldera. He was the one who helped me finish that adventure and sent me money to stay in a motels and pay for the ticket back to my city once the the works were registered. 

I returned the next day and at night I had to continue my workday. A few months passed and the notified me that I had not only obtained first place at the state level in that contest, but that of more thn 17.000 participants nationwide I had been the first place in my category. 

That earned me a trip to Mexico City and the possibility of exhibiting my work in the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City and more motivation and enthusiasm to continue believing in my ideas ans supporting those of the younger ones.

One of my students obtained second place at the state level in her category as well, so I was more than happy with those achievements. In November 2019 I received the opportunity to be a teacher of painting and drawing in a school for children of all ages where my vocation and experience continued to grow. I continued to collect some achievements and together with my students they also achieved important participations and always being in the first places in the competitions. 

The pandemic of COVID-19 I had to pause my projects and my jobs as a painting and drawing teacher. I decided that even if I leave many things behind I would have other opportunities. On January 11, 2021 I obtained my residency and at the end of May of the same year I moved to Arizona together with my friend Fernando Caldera. We moved to work and teach me how to navigate in a country unknown to me, to continue painting. I have a job in the mornings as a cook, the rest of the time I dedicate to art. I am active in calls and in the process of making my first individual exhibition.

My conceptual discourse as an artist is to portray scenes of interest and scenarios that by themselves take on the character of reflection to achieve a work-spectator dialogue. My current style would define it as an approach to contemporary figurative art, such scenarios are poverty, inequality and insensibility of daily  life which I address in my latest paintings in which I am working, In parallel I also make works that address my perspective on the towns, cities and countries that I am getting to know, through their landscapes and their people.