This Chicana artist turns personal belongings into contemporary vanitas paintings │Victoria Martinez

At Arts to Hearts Project, for Issue 12: This Is Me, we kept returning to artists whose work didn’t just show identity on the surface, but wrestled with it in quieter, more complicated ways.

Victoria Martinez was one of those artists. She is a selected artist of this issue, and her paintings hold a tension that feels deeply personal and strangely universal at the same time. At first glance, they’re still life’s objects arranged carefully across a canvas, painted with extraordinary patience and precision.

But the longer you spend with them, the less they feel like paintings about objects and the more they start feeling like paintings about us. About what we keep. What we attach ourselves to. What we think will make us feel complete.

Her relationship with identity has always lived in that in-between space. Growing up Chicana in Los Angeles during the 1990s, she came of age at a time when Mexican American culture was becoming more visible and celebrated, and that discovery of cultural belonging shaped her deeply.

Learning Spanish became a way of moving closer to her roots, eventually leading her to Mexico City a place where she has now lived for more than two decades. And somewhere inside that movement between countries, cultures, belonging, and distance, her work began taking shape.

There’s something fascinating about the fact that she uses oil painting one of the slowest and most traditional mediums to talk about consumerism, accumulation, and modern excess.

While the world moves faster and faster around us, her process demands slowness. Forty or fifty hours spent sitting with the same objects, observing them closely, thinking about what they mean and why we hold onto them so tightly in the first place.

That attention changes the paintings. Because the objects stop feeling disposable. They begin carrying traces of memory, affection, identity, and desire. A handbag. A shoe. A piece of porcelain. They become portraits of a life, but also reflections of the systems we live inside.

And maybe that’s why the work feels so layered emotionally. There’s critique in it, but there’s also tenderness. Humor. Nostalgia. Contradiction. She understands the pleasure of beautiful things while also questioning what that desire does to us over time.

Even her background in graffiti still quietly lives inside the work. The rebellion. The refusal to ask permission. The instinct to make what feels true rather than what feels expected. That energy never really left.

Now let’s get to know Victoria through our conversation with her about Chicana identity, painting accumulation to let it go, and why spending fifty hours looking closely at an object can completely change the way you understand it.

Q1. Can you share your background and what it was like growing up Chicana in 1990s Los Angeles between different cultures and identities?

I think the 1990s were a really interesting time. Technology and the internet were just getting started, and I remember a strong sense of excitement about the future. I also remember Mexican American culture beginning to be more widely celebrated, which I felt deeply drawn to. I had come to see Spanish as a window into that world, so I had been studying it for several years.

Exploring my roots and understanding my identity as a Chicana became very important to me—so much so that I visited Mexico City for the first time and began a relationship with the country where I’ve now lived for 22 years. I’ve always felt a bit different, and building a life in another country was a way to reconstruct myself, on one hand working very hard to fit in and on the other hand being more different than ever.

That mix of belonging and otherness—combined with nostalgia and reflection on what shapes us—has created the emotional landscape that informs my work as a painter.

Q2. You use the traditional medium of oil paint to explore consumerism and excess was that contrast intentional?

Absolutely. I love that painting in oils takes time. It demands patience, a sequence of techniques to build up layers, and a real understanding of the medium. It’s also very physical—tangible and grounded—which I find deeply comforting in a world shaped by social networks and AI.

I feel that the acceleration of material accumulation today is closely tied to technology, so using a traditional process to reflect on that condition is very satisfying. When I paint, I spend 40 or 50 hours simply looking at the subject and thinking about it. It’s a marvelous way to study a problem and to truly confront it.

Q3. The still life tradition has a long history, what parts of it do you feel connected to, and what do you intentionally move away from?

I borrow both the technique and the pleasure of illusion—the challenge of painting three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. I’m also interested in how objects can tell stories about the world they inhabit.

What feels different in my work is how personal it is. I’m painting my own belongings and allowing them to stand in for the things we all accumulate. I also experiment with different arrangements—some scenes are accidental still lifes, while others are carefully composed. In the end, they all function as vanitas.

Whether it’s antique porcelain or fast fashion, the pleasure of owning these things becomes meaningless in the face of death.

There’s a moral thread about desire running through the work: getting all that we want doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness.

Q4. You’ve said objects carry history and emotion beyond their function, is there something in your life that feels too personal to paint?

Painting especially significant objects actually seems like a wonderful way to honor them and meditate on their meaning. I don’t think anything is off limits. That said, certain objects become more meaningful to me after I’ve painted them.

Q5. You speak about letting go as transformation rather than loss, has painting an object ever helped you emotionally release it?

This is a big reason why I paint what I do! While there may be specific items that I keep, by painting I create this process of learning the thing, really making it mine at a neurological level, and that helps lessen my attachment. I am painting my accumulation to be able to get rid of it.

Q6. You were part of LA’s graffiti movement in the 1990s, what did that experience leave behind in the way you approach painting today?

Graffiti is ephemeral—you know from the start that your piece will eventually be painted over. Learning to let go so easily was great. Now I work on linen, hoping my paintings will last, which feels like the opposite of how I thought back then. Graffiti gave me confidence in my artistic vision, my skills, and my identity as an artist.

It also gave me a sense of rebellion—making illegal murals that weren’t recognized as art. Interestingly, I still feel that same sense of rebellion in what I do now. Choosing to make what genuinely makes me happy, regardless of outside opinions, continues to feel rebellious—and that hasn’t changed, even as the medium has.

Q7. What role do you think painting plays today in re-examining the overlooked or the everyday?  

Painting is a process of truly seeing. Artists act as a kind of filter, helping others notice what might otherwise be overlooked. When we paint something, we’re offering a way of seeing it, and that can allow others to see through our eyes. Ideally, that experience encourages people to look at their own lives a little differently—even if just for a moment.

Q8. What advice would you give to someone who came to art later in life and is only now beginning to make the work they always wanted to create?

I would tell them to trust their instincts. Life experience is essential in building a new practice and navigating the art world. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve had jobs in the past that were far more stressful and painful, so I feel genuinely grateful to be living as an artist now.

All the knowledge gained from past work and responsibilities—especially the difficult ones—creates a strong foundation to move forward from. Late-career artists have lived through a lot, and because of that, they have so much to offer the world.

As our conversation with Victoria came to a close, we kept thinking about how honest her work feels about desire.

Not in a judgmental way. Not in a “consumerism is bad” kind of way. More human than that. Because most of us know what it feels like to attach meaning to objects. To keep things long after we need them. To believe, even briefly, that buying something beautiful might also change how we feel inside.

Victoria understands that instinct deeply, and instead of pretending she’s outside of it, she places herself directly inside the conversation. That’s what makes the work so compelling.

These aren’t distant observations about modern life. She’s painting her own belongings, her own accumulation, her own relationship with wanting and letting go. And somehow that personal approach makes the paintings feel even more universal.

We really loved what she said about painting objects in order to release them. There’s something almost emotional about that process spending hours studying an object so closely that you no longer need to hold onto it physically in the same way anymore. The painting becomes the memory instead.

And maybe that’s why the work feels so layered. Beneath the colour, the texture, the beautifully painted surfaces, there’s this ongoing conversation about identity, attachment, nostalgia, value, and the strange emotional lives objects end up carrying for us.

It also feels connected to the theme This Is Me in such an interesting way. Because identity in Victoria’s work isn’t presented through self-portraiture or direct storytelling. It reveals itself through collections, habits, belongings, cultural memory, taste, obsession, accumulation all the quiet things people build themselves around over time. And honestly, that feels very true to life.

For people living with art, these are the kinds of paintings that keep opening the longer you spend with them. At first, you notice the technical beauty. Then the objects themselves. Then slowly you begin thinking about your own objects differently too. What you keep. What you attach meaning to. What you’re afraid to let go of. That’s powerful.

And artists who can make people look at everyday life with that much attention and honesty are always worth returning to.

To follow Victoria’s journey and see more of her work, find her through the links below.