Leo Cordovi & Mär Martinez

Leo Cordovi is a contemporary painter born in Havana, Cuba. At the age of fifteen years old he immigrated to the United States, later graduating with a Bachelor’s in Fine Art from the University of Central Florida in 2019. With a focus in acrylic painting, his work offers expressive mark making and an underlaying and over layering of colors that aim to blur the line between naturalism and abstraction. His paintings utilize the landscape as a visual vehicle to explore memory and different states of both conscious and unconscious awareness. Cordovi has attended many residency programs across the United States and is currently completing his second term as an Artist-In-Action at Art and History Museums Maitland. Select exhibitions include: Leo Cordovi: Florida Views, K Edwards Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL; IN BETWEEN, Maitland Art & History Museums, Maitland, FL; Nature Utopia, Spazio Faro Gallery, Rome, Italy; The Corridor Project, Downtown Arts District, Orlando, FL. Leo is currently based in Orlando, Florida.

Mär Martinez is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sculptural painting. Her work dissects dominance, aggression and power dynamics through the lens of a culturally-enforced binary system. She received a BFA in Painting and a BA in Art History at the University of Central Florida.

Selected Awards include: Bridge Ahead Initiative Grant, Jewish Art Salon Student Fellow, FusionFest Best in Show Award, Katherine K. & Jacob Holzer Art Scholarship, Frank Lloyd Wright Scholar Recipient, and the Miniature Fine Arts Society Award. Solo Exhibitions include: Tension Point, FL, Holding Myself Close, FL, Push Comes to Shove, FL, FRACTURE, FL, and Illusions of Safety, PA. Exhibitions include: Goblin Mode, NY, ZOONOTIC HEX, NY, CLOCKWORK, OH, IN BETWEEN, FL, KARST GROUNDS, FL, Wiregrass Biennial, AL, and A Tiny Bit of Fire, London, GENESIS, NY, Remembering the Words to Our Song, FL, and Collaborative Animals, OH.

Martinez is a member of the Dorothy M. Gillespie Foundation Advisory Board in Nyack, NY, and is on the PLATFORM Selection Committee at the Orlando Museum of Art, FL. She has attended many residencies around the US, and is a current semifinalist for the 2024 Fulbright. Martinez is serving her second year as Art and History Museums Maitland’s Artist-in-Action.