NEW YORK

Miguel Martinez: Procession

Feb 7 – Mar 8, 2026

Opening Reception: Sat, Feb 7, 6 – 8pm

Events:
Coloring Get-Together, Feb 21, 4 – 6pm
Interactive mask making & conversation with the artist, Sun, Mar 8, 4 – 6pm

BROOKLYN, NY – Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York is pleased to present Procession, an exhibition featuring the work of Miguel Martinez. For this installation Martinez presents a series of painted masks suspended from the gallery ceiling. Each is made using paper masks surrounded by “wings” carved from foam. Martinez decorates these cherub-like masks with patterns and colors inspired by Mexican folk masks and the glam aesthetics of personal idols including Sun Ra, Leigh Bowery, and drag troupe The Cockettes. These masks will be an integral part of a public performance involving costumes and choreography during the 2026 Mexican Independence Day Parade. Martinez contextualizes this project by describing his associations with tinieblas, a word appearing in Spanish translations of Catholic texts, describing the emptiness before creation:

”… a gendered noun at once plural, atmospheric, and feminine that has always sparked for me an image of shadow entities fluent in pre-dogmatic wisdom. These characters have appeared in my work, often in masks or star-spangled outfits that hint at their supernatural cosmic origins. I see these masks as the most recent vehicle for embodying their story, their ‘passing’ through this material realm.”

This exhibition includes formative iterations of the characters that the masks loosely portray and a poem to mark the expansive role that translation and reinterpretation play in Martinez’s creative process. Titled “Eco del Cerro (Echo from the Hill)”, the bilingual text is a liberal translation of a segment from the Corpus Hermeticum, a mystical text attributed to the legendary gnostic Hermes Trismegistus. Martinez has been illuminating this work through drawings, paintings, and sculpture for the past six years. The syncretic and psychedelic outlook of the poem mirror the eclectic reclaiming of spiritual imagination that has shaped the queer lens through which Martinez creates his multimedia works.

Two events will take place during the exhibition.

Miguel Martinez is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. He has shown at GRIMM and The Clemente in New York, The Spite Haus in Philadelphia, and Lawndale Art Center in Houston. He received an MFA from Hunter College in 2021 and a BFA from The University of Houston in 2013.

This exhibition was organized by Rachael Gorchov.