Sensitivity in the hand that handles the brush, love and kindness in the heart, determination in the will and talent and understanding to properly assume that one is an artist, define Ana María Martínez. No confusion nor leaving anything to chance. Everything is in its place when the essential thing is the expressive freedom protected by the study and understanding of the work of the great masters of painting.

The fruits in Ana María's paintings are not ingested, they are forbidden for the mouth but they are offered for love. They are not those that are in every kitchen, they are those whose solemnity, thanks to a skillful brush, places them in a level of contemplation. They are only to see and enjoy in solitary intimacy as the only situation capable of provoking warm emotions in contact with life, with half of the heart that dialogues with its other half. Situations that only religious symbols can provoke.

Ana María's artwork enters the 21st century following the long tradition of still life, but not copying or reproducing what was done since the fourteenth century, but with an absolutely personal language. She solidifies the atmosphere, freezes the image in a time without time, her interest is focused on color and composition, as well as the fidelity of a represented form, without being interested in realism per se. Hers is a fresh look at the intricate tangle of form that repeats and repeats itself across the surface as if it wants to be known as absolutely real. To speak of hyper-realism would be to classify it in a simple conception of what her artwork essentially means. It is neutral still life, objective to the point of adjoining conceptual abstraction.

In her work, Ana María does not refer to the simple imitation of a model but rather interprets them giving them an almost magical character. Grapes, oranges or apples do not exist except in her pure imagination and in her humanistic poetics.

A pictorial expression of beauty in ultimate correspondence with the universe of the imaginary. Accumulation, eroticism and sensuality as pretexts for exercising a creative act prove that for Ana María, “Fruits are my characters, they are not fruits as such. They are part of my life. When I break an orange, I don't see it as an inanimate object, the image that comes to my mind and heart is that of a broken, hurt person ... That's why not all my oranges are the same .” Hence, these fruits cannot be considered as inanimate objects…

Her passion for an almost hyper-realistic treatment of fruits, leaves and other elements, places the forms on the level of magic and the non-real, closer to a naturalistic surrealism that represses any allusion to reality. Even the harmony of colors and the play of light and shadow are so visually sonorous that they provoke perceiving them as coming from a fantastic universe. So grapes, oranges and apples are not grapes, neither oranges nor apples. Because it is not an imitation of the model but a mental interpretation following a plastic balance…

Text extract of the book: “Ana María in the New Century” by: Dr. Bélgica Rodríguez

Caracas, April 2001