When FARMWORK
Narsiso Martinez’ paintings honor the labor, resilience, and humanity of agricultural workers.
by BEAU FLEMISTER photographs by SEAN DUFRENE
/ COMMUNITY SPR UT
Tell me about your time as a farmworker while you were in art school. When I went to [California State University, Long Beach] after community college, that’s when I started to work in the fields up in Washington state. I did that work every summer for nine years, from undergrad on through my graduate program. At the beginning it was just to make money, but by the end of my time, the farmwork really spoke to my program and the thesis paper I was writing on it for my MFA.
It pretty backbreaking work. The first thing I had to pick was asparagus, which is super low to the ground; it just happened to be that time of the season. Then we moved on to grapes and other produce. I’d take a bus up to Washington state and back to L.A. every summer, literally leave the day my classes were finished and get back the day before, to maximize it. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it [ laughs ]. At first I’d just work with my was actually brother a lot; he’s who got me the work in the first place. But at one point I separated from my brother, and I went off to reconnect with coworkers I’d met over the years. I was reconnecting with the community, and we were sharing our stories of how we came to the United States, and we all had similar stories — about the family we’d left, etc. I realized that I could speak about this in the art. If anything, it was like: I’m gonna shed light on farmers and what they do.
Your work conveys a lot of stories. What’s the main idea you try to communicate? In general, I want to speak about farmworkers and their contributions to the economy and to the country, and show that what they do is very important. They are essential workers, and I feel like that’s my main goal with these portraits and landscapes. Because they’re not often treated like essential workers Take, for example, having lunch on the ground. Most of these fruits get to nice tables for families or in restaurants, but the people who pick them, they have their lunch literally on the ground. There’s a lot of pesticide residue and dirt. Often, they don’t have time to even wash their hands before they eat. The more produce you pick, the more money you make, so people are always in a hurry. So you just sit on the ground and eat. It’s sad and unfortunate. But honestly, I’m not trying to just show suffering. When I did [farmwork], we didn’t even know we were working in bad conditions [ laughs ]. I just want to show their humanity. Not everyone is in pain; some people sing and laugh — there are many faces to this work. We just need to have a bigger conversation between the farmworkers and the agricultural industry.
LEFT: MARTINEZ IN HIS STUDIO SURROUNDED BY DISCARDED PRODUCE BOXES, HIS PREFERRED CANVAS. BELOW: MARTINEZ WAS A FARMWORKER HIMSELF BEFORE CELEBRATING THEIR FORTITUDE THROUGH HIS ART.
becomes ARTWORK
“Write what you know” is conventional wisdom among authors, but similar advice is shared among artists, too. A landscape, a medium, a portrait or theme comes across as far more authentic when created by someone who has actually experienced it. Narsiso Martinez, best known for painting portraits of farmworkers on
discarded produce boxes, delivers that authenticity. For nearly a decade, the L.A.-based artist from Oaxaca, Mexico, worked in fruit orchards and crop fields to pay for art school. His vivid pieces, shown in galleries and museums all over the United States — including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston — provide a rare, personal, and deeply honest look into the lives and working conditions of immigrant farmworkers in the modern American agricultural industry. Martinez tells The Rooted Journal that beyond the pain or struggle inherent in farmwork, he aims to portray the simple humanity of these essential workers.
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