Sergio Martínez Cifuentes was born in Santiago, Chile on the 7th of July 1966. He was a timid and introverted boy, and the fact that he had lived with his grandparents until the age of seven has undoubtedly influenced his personality. They were of an overanxious nature and therefore hindered him from forming any relationships with other children, and even his participation in team games. This forced him to develop a greater capacity for observation and gave vent to his fantasies, which were played out in the damp gardens and orchards of the house in Talcahuano
While he was still a boy, he found a way to get noticed by way of his sketches. These, together with his poetry and short musical pieces, began to mould his adolescent persona as a romantic and existentialist. At the age of seventeen, as a result of the economic recession of the eighties which had a disastrous effect on South American countries, he decided to join the Navy. This was to help his parents financially and, as he was in the midst of a very insecure puberty, would also help to challenge him both physically and mentally. The constant stream of letters he received from his mother during his first three months of basic training were enough to make him give up, leave the Naval Academy and return to his normal studies
He stood out from his fellow students because of his aptitude in the plastic arts (sculpture and modelling), which led to him to complete various certificates in art and he also won many prizes. It was during this period that he began to understand the true importance of his relationship with art and he initiated a self teaching process. The distance he maintained from other formative trends and the style of art of the local art school served to establish his individual approach as a painter
During his first period as a painter he adhered to a descriptive realism, in which he showed a great mastery of forms and an elegant yet contained use of colour: landscapes were his main theme. In 1987 he married Lizeth of whom he painted his first portraits and nudes, discovering in the human form a new challenge. This he proved from the 90s onwards by making the nude the theme which covered practically all of his canvases. In 1993 he exhibited “Cuerpos” (Bodies), his first showing of nude paintings drawing an unparalleled volume of viewers to the art galleries of Concepción, Chile. Between 2002 and 2003 there was a change in his academic style that served to associate him with the Pre-Raphaelites and this allowed the appearance of some very interpretive brushstrokes
He abandoned oils for acrylics, and his fine cotton canvases for a more textured linen, but principally, he changed his focus on detail and finish into an interest in more expressive and intensive images of both light and form. With his recent return to oils, he introduced to his oil paintings his experience in the dynamics of acrylics which we can see in compositions and in effects of volume and light, neither of which appear to hold any difficulty for him. Since 1989 he has held over twenty exhibitions of his own work and has exhibited a similar number of times with others. Between 1992 and 2003 in Concepción Chile, he directed his own painting workshops, where he taught a large number of people with whom he has exhibited major works in the city. Since 2002, he has participated in International Art Fairs in Caracas, Buenos Aires, California and New York. Global Fine Art has represented him since the end of 2003 in the United State and Canada. 2003 saw him complete a mural at Kingston College in Concepción which was subsequently transported to Spain. He is currently resident in Madrid and is represented exclusively by Sammer Gallery
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