LEONOR MARTINEZ
My practice as an interdisciplinary artist, framed against the backdrop that is my Colombian heritage, exists in conversation with themes of childhood, queerness, family and colonial history. My work takes shape through sound, video, performance, sculpture and textiles. Currently I am experimenting with and blurring the lines between technology and wearable garments.





Desde Donde?



Video - 2026

This moving image piece explores the fragmentation of identity within the Colombian diaspora. Desde Donde? (meaning From where? or Starting where?) is a video collage that accompanies a narrated poem I wrote titled ¿Desde Donde Empezó A Correr Mi Sangre? (Where Did My Blood Start To Flow?) where I recount through metaphor and the personification of blood the history of the Spanish conquest, the slave trade and subsequent mixing of Black, Indigenous and Spanish people in the land my parents call home. 

Desde Donde? reflects on patterns of displacement by comparing it to the flow of blood, how it existed within every person then and flows through me now. 

I Am Soft

 


Soft Sculpture and Performance - 2025


Inspired from a semester I spent abroad in Dublin, I Am Soft is a large self-portrait soft sculpture and performance piece that encompasses a new understanding I gained of myself in Ireland. Before going, my self-perception was not whole, I lacked the vision of my softness, goodness and love, struggling to indulge in these qualities for myself. But to be in a bustling new city alone meant to be held by myself, loved by myself, soft towards myself. 

Friendly Scarf of Entropy

 


Electronic Wearable Garment  - 2026


Friendly Scarf of Entropy exists in the space where practicality and impracticality overlap, to imagine different futures with wearable technology through the absurdity of creating a wearable friend. Made with real lamb hide this half-faux stole in the shape of a two-headed friend sits covering an acrylic frame with built in stepper motors controlled by an Arduino UNO. The stepper motors automate a lifting and falling movement in the neck of the scarf that covers and uncovers the wearer’s face---a gesture of protection and comfort that is turned odd and uncanny. 

Born Of My Hands, The 40106

 


Performance - 2024


This performance re-evaluates how technology is meant to serve us through the act of me playing a 6-voice synthesizer I built from scratch. Efficiency under capitalsim grows parasitic, oligarchs who develop technology brand the evolution of their products as efficient with the purpose to “make our lives easier”. Meanwhile our independence becomes obsolete. This synth is tricky to play, it is loud and unpredictable, but it is playful, intriguing and stimulating. What if the future of technology consisted of obstinate interfaces? What if technology served us by challenging us instead?


Arms Raised, Under the Branches



Video - 2024


This is a video poem I made as a passion project for a poem I wrote in Spring of 2024 when I spent a day with friends sharing our deepest woes and darkest secrets in the beautiful wilderness of Lynn Canyon. All the nature shots in this video were taken in the same location where the poem was written, these shots contrast with the ones of me swallowed in red light, creating a push and pull narrative up to the viewers interpretation. This was filmed, shot and edited by me using a Canon 90D camera and Premiere Pro. The music and narration was also done by me, instrumentals and field recordings were done with a Zoom H6 and all edited on Adobe Audition. 

Los Martinez del Barrio Modelo



Video - 2023

Using footage of my father’s family taken on a defunct film camera c.1970 I created a memorial video to my late grandmother. I interviewed my father and aunt to tell me about her life and included audio clips of these interviews within the piece. For the ambient sound composition I used Adobe Audition and GarageBand, combining synth instrumentals played by me along with sampled recordings of my grandma, tropical birds, and one of my dad’s favourite childhood songs “Vereda Tropical” played by Orquesta Seranata Tropical. This piece is not just about my grandmother’s story but about her everlasting impact on the Martinez family as a whole. 

Title translation: 
“The Martinez Family of The Modelo Neighbourhood”




    Road To Light (Extended)



    Film Score - 2024


    This is a collaborative piece between me and Emilia Joan Tolnai who wrote and directed “Reflections”. I composed the music, titled “Road To Light - Extended Version” which scores this film using Ableton Live and Adobe Audition. Minutes 1:36-4:30 (aside from the voiceover) are an original song I composed on my own before production of the film began. For this part, I meshed sampled recordings from my everyday life including an ATM rebooting and a busker playing saxophone, with recordings of myself playing two analogue synthesizers (the Buchla Easel Command and Prophet-5.) “Road To Light” as a standalone piece was made for the hopeful days where you feel confident in public walking alone, the road you walk on being a metaphor for the beautiful and unpredictable life you lead. 

    The beginning and end of the score are additives I created under the directorial guidance of Emilia, sampling our own voices and recordings of rain taken on set. 


    Gala



    Film Score - 2023

    This is a collaborative piece between me and Emilia Joan Tolnai who wrote and directed “An Alternate Bliss”. I composed the music titled “Gala” which scores this film under the directorial guidance of Emilia. I used Adobe Audition and Ableton Live, combining recordings of me playing the Prophet-5, sampled field recordings of rain and the beach with vocals sung by Emilia and I. 

    This piece was also created using sounds recorded on an Elektrosluch (an open-source electronic device that detects electro-magnetic sounds) that I soldered together in collaboration with a friend, Saskia Downard. The gritty electronic sounds in the song come from this device.





    Smoker’s Tension



    Video 2023


    A visual and sonic work of succumbing to temptation done in collaboration with Anika Kuban who stars in the video as ‘Red-haired smoker’. This diptych plays with the concept of tension and release within storytelling. It indulges the viewer with the scene of a character who is trying to quit cigarettes but just can’t stop himself from caving in when he’s met with another smoker in an alleyway. Video editing done by Anika Kuban, sound and foley done by me on Adobe Audition. Special thanks to Sean for being our guilt-ridden cigarette addict.